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What was the Y2K Bug?. Parker Schroeder and Andrew Melville. Background. Referred to many names such as Year 2000 Problem, Y2K Problem, the Millennium Bug, the Y2K Bug, or Y2K
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What was the Y2K Bug? Parker Schroeder and Andrew Melville
Background • Referred to many names such as Year 2000 Problem, Y2K Problem, the Millennium Bug, the Y2K Bug, or Y2K • The problem arose for digital and non-digital documents because of the two number year abbreviation at the end of every date
Background • It was thought that there would be a logical error with computers when it rolled over from the year x99 to x00 • Computer programmers thought that once the date turned to x00, current files would become invalid and previous data would be lost and unrecoverable
Background • The theory caused many leading technology businesses to panic and spend billions dollars to backup the files and to purchase new equipment in order to prevent the failure • In the end, many of the supposed problems never occurred and computer applications continued to run smoothly while the rest of the world went on with its normal life
Programming Solutions • The major problems were able to solved, but at a costly price. For example, Microsoft spent 300 billion dollars on the issue • The two methods used to solve the problem were date expansion and windowing
Programming Solutions • Date expansion- Almost self-explanatory, the two year dates were made into four years dates so that they included the century. The downside to this solution was it was very costly • Windowing- The two year number system was retained, however, programs were installed that counted the century value for certain programs
Documented Errors • 150 slot machines at race tracks in Delaware stopped working • The U.S. Naval Observatory, which runs the country's official clock, had a glitch on its web site • In Onagawa, Japan, an alarm sounded at a nuclear power plant two minutes after midnight
End results • Most of the money spent was precautionary, however, if the bug did have an effect, these companies would have lost everything • In the end, the Y2K Millennium bug turned out to be a hoax because machines that were untreated by Y2K prevention software operated successfully