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It didn't help that the media was hysterical claiming planes would fall out of the sky and nuclear reactors everywhere would melt down etc.

wkat4242 3y ago
Bad things could have happened. And probably would have without all the media attention which forced frugal business leaders to take the issue seriously. It's important to realise an averted disaster was still a potential disaster before it happened. If anything this problem really put technical debt on the map. Which is a problem in more than just date formats.
addicted 3y ago
Many lives would have been lost if so many billions were not spent on fixing Y2K issues. I don’t know about direct lives saved but I have 2nd hand knowledge (I didn’t become a programmer until a few years after Y2K) of systems which if they did break down would have cost lives because people would have not had access to desperately needed money and it was statistically likely that at least a few of them would have died through suicide if not due to the issues created by the lack of money.
Ekaros 3y ago
I could see real problems with plane navigation and even air traffic control. Not that it would mean planes falling from sky... Nuclear plants however... Yeah, no...
TYPE_FASTER 3y ago
https://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/3.44.html https://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/3.44.html
fred_is_fred 3y ago
I distinctly remember the Wired article that claimed power plants would fail - in an anecdote they said - "Imagine a temperature sensor reading comes in and the system then divides it by the year, the system now sees the temp as infinity and the whole plant shuts down". I read it a few times to make sure I followed and then asked myself, why exactly would you divide the temperate by the last two digits from the year? Wired anyway thought you would do that and it was going to cause massive failure.
- mewpmewp2 3y ago
  Maybe it wants to measure change of temperature speed to calibrate whether to cool/heat something faster?
  - fred_is_fred 3y ago
    Temp over time makes sense, temp over the last 2 digits of the year?
    - emergie 3y ago
      Consider a system with PID driver that samples temperature every 15-30min. Measures are not 100% regular, so we have to substract dates to calculate time duration between samples. Lets say we got one measure with timestamp 99-12-31 23:50 and second one with 00-01-01 00:15. What will calendar code do if we substract 99-12-31 23:50 from 00-01-01 00:15? Does 00y mean 2000 or 1900? What will the driver do when suddenly temperature differential will change without relation to physical reality?
drewcoo 3y ago
I'm fine with all that but there were no follow-ups. All lead-up and no release. Where were the interviews with Cobol nerds standing in front of huge tape drives, sweating even in the chilly server room air as they mumbled inscrutable things? The folks who fixed Y2K bugs were not the fad-driven, easy-money-chasing web weenies of the dot com boom. They were folks who worked on computers because they actually liked it.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  >Where were the interviews with Cobol nerds standing in front of huge tape drives, sweating even in the chilly server room air as they mumbled inscrutable things? Those didn't sell to the general public nearly as well as "oh my god we are all going to die", which seems to sell gangbusters to the same-ish cohort every ten years.
anonym29 3y ago
Histrionics over nonsense? That sounds completely out of character for our media corporations! /s

wkat4242 3y ago

Bad things could have happened. And probably would have without all the media attention which forced frugal business leaders to take the issue seriously. It's important to realise an averted disaster was still a potential disaster before it happened. If anything this problem really put technical debt on the map. Which is a problem in more than just date formats.

addicted 3y ago

Many lives would have been lost if so many billions were not spent on fixing Y2K issues. I don’t know about direct lives saved but I have 2nd hand knowledge (I didn’t become a programmer until a few years after Y2K) of systems which if they did break down would have cost lives because people would have not had access to desperately needed money and it was statistically likely that at least a few of them would have died through suicide if not due to the issues created by the lack of money.

Ekaros 3y ago

I could see real problems with plane navigation and even air traffic control. Not that it would mean planes falling from sky... Nuclear plants however... Yeah, no...

TYPE_FASTER 3y ago

https://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/3.44.html https://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/3.44.html

fred_is_fred 3y ago

I distinctly remember the Wired article that claimed power plants would fail - in an anecdote they said - "Imagine a temperature sensor reading comes in and the system then divides it by the year, the system now sees the temp as infinity and the whole plant shuts down". I read it a few times to make sure I followed and then asked myself, why exactly would you divide the temperate by the last two digits from the year? Wired anyway thought you would do that and it was going to cause massive failure.

mewpmewp2 3y ago
Maybe it wants to measure change of temperature speed to calibrate whether to cool/heat something faster?
- fred_is_fred 3y ago
  Temp over time makes sense, temp over the last 2 digits of the year?
  - emergie 3y ago
    Consider a system with PID driver that samples temperature every 15-30min. Measures are not 100% regular, so we have to substract dates to calculate time duration between samples. Lets say we got one measure with timestamp 99-12-31 23:50 and second one with 00-01-01 00:15. What will calendar code do if we substract 99-12-31 23:50 from 00-01-01 00:15? Does 00y mean 2000 or 1900? What will the driver do when suddenly temperature differential will change without relation to physical reality?

drewcoo 3y ago

I'm fine with all that but there were no follow-ups. All lead-up and no release. Where were the interviews with Cobol nerds standing in front of huge tape drives, sweating even in the chilly server room air as they mumbled inscrutable things? The folks who fixed Y2K bugs were not the fad-driven, easy-money-chasing web weenies of the dot com boom. They were folks who worked on computers because they actually liked it.

mrguyorama 3y ago
>Where were the interviews with Cobol nerds standing in front of huge tape drives, sweating even in the chilly server room air as they mumbled inscrutable things? Those didn't sell to the general public nearly as well as "oh my god we are all going to die", which seems to sell gangbusters to the same-ish cohort every ten years.

anonym29 3y ago

Histrionics over nonsense? That sounds completely out of character for our media corporations! /s