4 ms·

The global panic over the millennium bug, 25 years on

10 points by sandebert 2y ago

sandebert 2y ago
Original headline: ‘All people could do was hope the nerds would fix it’: the global panic over the millennium bug, 25 years on
bee_rider 2y ago
> Curiously enough, to this day experts disagree over why nothing happened: did the world’s IT professionals unite to successfully avert an impending disaster? Or was it all a pointless panic and a colossal waste of money? I don’t think there’s a real disagreement here. A lot of IT workers did a lot of overtime, and also the truly apocalyptic predictions were ridiculous and never going to happen. People worked really hard to make sure manufacturing plants and payroll systems would keep chugging along, not to prevent the end of society, which was never really in play.
- Clubber 2y ago
  >the truly apocalyptic predictions were ridiculous and never going to happen News had to get their fear views, even back then.
- mikestew 2y ago
  Any ”disagreement“ is by people that weren’t there. There were real bugs that needed real fixin’. Would it have been the end of modern civilization if those bugs didn’t get fixed? Probably not, but it would have been a real mess. I was at Microsoft at the time, and waiting by the phone for something we missed to blow up. A whole lot of Age of Empires on 12/31/99-1/1/00, but the phone didn’t ring once, but only because of the ass busted many months prior.
- RaftPeople 2y ago
  > I don’t think there’s a real disagreement here. A lot of IT workers did a lot of overtime, and also the truly apocalyptic predictions were ridiculous and never going to happen This pretty much sums it up. Where I worked, we started fixing newer versions of our software products in the early 90's. I also contracted at a large business partner ERP company to build tools to fix earlier versions of their software, that was in 1996 (because many customers couldn't upgrade their ERP's to the fixed version by Y2K, so needed a temp in-place fix).
wkat4242 2y ago
Mostly a lot of work got things fixed. But also, around 2000 society wasn't nearly as automated as it is now. I'm sure it would have caused major outages if nothing had been done but whole continents wouldn't have starved :) If the same thing were to happen tomorrow then yes, shit would really hit the fan. Luckily IT is no longer the cowboy landscape it used to be. Sure there's still a lot of messing around but it's not like in the late 90s. I worked for a major company that had every laptop's administrator password set to <simple word>123 . That sort of stuff. I'm kinda surprised that didn't lead to really major hacks.
GnarfGnarf 2y ago
There were real bugs and there was a real possibility of major disruption. We were spared because of mobilization of resources and the dedication of the programmers involved.

10 points by sandebert 2y ago

Original headline: ‘All people could do was hope the nerds would fix it’: the global panic over the millennium bug, 25 years on

bee_rider 2y ago

> Curiously enough, to this day experts disagree over why nothing happened: did the world’s IT professionals unite to successfully avert an impending disaster? Or was it all a pointless panic and a colossal waste of money? I don’t think there’s a real disagreement here. A lot of IT workers did a lot of overtime, and also the truly apocalyptic predictions were ridiculous and never going to happen. People worked really hard to make sure manufacturing plants and payroll systems would keep chugging along, not to prevent the end of society, which was never really in play.

Clubber 2y ago
>the truly apocalyptic predictions were ridiculous and never going to happen News had to get their fear views, even back then.
mikestew 2y ago
Any ”disagreement“ is by people that weren’t there. There were real bugs that needed real fixin’. Would it have been the end of modern civilization if those bugs didn’t get fixed? Probably not, but it would have been a real mess. I was at Microsoft at the time, and waiting by the phone for something we missed to blow up. A whole lot of Age of Empires on 12/31/99-1/1/00, but the phone didn’t ring once, but only because of the ass busted many months prior.
RaftPeople 2y ago
> I don’t think there’s a real disagreement here. A lot of IT workers did a lot of overtime, and also the truly apocalyptic predictions were ridiculous and never going to happen This pretty much sums it up. Where I worked, we started fixing newer versions of our software products in the early 90's. I also contracted at a large business partner ERP company to build tools to fix earlier versions of their software, that was in 1996 (because many customers couldn't upgrade their ERP's to the fixed version by Y2K, so needed a temp in-place fix).

wkat4242 2y ago

Mostly a lot of work got things fixed. But also, around 2000 society wasn't nearly as automated as it is now. I'm sure it would have caused major outages if nothing had been done but whole continents wouldn't have starved :) If the same thing were to happen tomorrow then yes, shit would really hit the fan. Luckily IT is no longer the cowboy landscape it used to be. Sure there's still a lot of messing around but it's not like in the late 90s. I worked for a major company that had every laptop's administrator password set to <simple word>123 . That sort of stuff. I'm kinda surprised that didn't lead to really major hacks.

GnarfGnarf 2y ago

There were real bugs and there was a real possibility of major disruption. We were spared because of mobilization of resources and the dedication of the programmers involved.