Fiction, Fantasy, and Fact

Fiction, Fantasy, and Fact:

"The Mad Scramble for the Elusive Silver Bullet . . . and the Clock Ticks Away."

Wayne Anderson
November 7, 1996
The year 2000 is practically around the corner, promising a new era of greatness and
wonder . . . as long as you don't own a computer or work with one. The year 2000 is bringing a
Pandora's Box of gifts to the computer world, and the latch is slowly coming undone.
The year 2000 bug is not really a "bug" or "virus," but is more a computer industry
mistake. Many of the PC's, mainframes, and software out there are not designed or
programmed to compute a future year ending in double zeros. This is going to be a costly "fix"
for the industry to absorb. In fact, Mike Elgan who is the editor of Windows Magazine, says " . .
. the problem could cost businesses a total of $600 billion to remedy." (p. 1)
The fallacy that mainframes were the only machines to be affected was short lived as industry
realized that 60 to 80 million home and small business users doing math or accounting etc. on
Windows 3.1 or older software, are just as susceptible to this "bug." Can this be repaired in
time? For some, it is already too late. A system that is devised to cut an annual federal deficit to
0 by the year 2002 is already in "hot water." Data will become erroneous as the numbers "just
don't add up" anymore. Some PC owners can upgrade their computer's BIOS (or complete
operating system) and upgrade the OS (operating system) to Windows 95, this will set them up
for another 99 years. Older software however, may very well have to be replaced or at the very
least, upgraded.
The year 2000 has become a two-fold problem. One is the inability of the computer to
adapt to the MM/DD/YY issue, while the second problem is the reluctance to which we seem to
be willing to address the impact it will have. Most IS (information system) people are either
unconcerned or unprepared.
Let me give you a "short take" on the problem we all are facing. To save storage space