On Nov 20, 2008, at 3:26 PM, Geoff Flight wrote:
> We Ed... were you there at the time coz it sure doesn't sound like
> it. We
> had the prophets of doom predicting a world-wide collapse of
> society. We had
> thousands of people predicting chaos and disaster. People filled up
> their
> tubs with water expecting the water companies to fail. Spam (canned
> meat)
> had its biggest sales in history as people expected the food
> distribution
> system to fail. Batteries and torches and candles were the order of
> the day
> as people expected to be living without major services. No-one
> wanted to fly
> over midnight in case the planes crashed.
Oh, sorry, my mistake. I thought we were still talking about the
realm of science, not tabloids.
In the sane world, the problem was recognized and most companies
spent huge sums of money correcting the problem. There were numerous
techniques developed for converting all fixed-width data programs to
accommodate the extra two digits. More modern programs, such as Fox,
added the concept of a rollover date that would serve to manage the
interpretation of 2-digit years.
Due to this investment of billions of dollars and lots of difficult
and tedious work, all major systems were upgraded and tested well
before 2000.01.01 rolled around. The problem wasn't imaginary; systems
would either work incorrectly or fail completely if they hadn't been
fixed. The hysteria you mention is what happens when people want to
make a buck at the expense of the ignorant.
-- Ed Leafe
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