What’s the final word about Y2K? We were
told this was a serious problem, and that
huge dollars and man-hours were needed
to head off trouble. Why didn’t the sky fall,
as predicted? Were the dollars spent before
Jan. 1, 2000, well-spent or not? The date
change seemed seamless to a layman. Was
this because we headed off most of the trouble
before it happened, or because it wasn’t as
serious as predicted?
—Paul Wheeler
One may inquire: Why am I answering
this now? Because the question keeps coming
in, and at some point you
have to ask, “If I don’t
take it on, who will?”
So, here’s the best
answer you’re likely to
get: 1. While the true
extent of Y2K issues
will never be known,
what we do know suggests
the problem was
wildly exaggerated. In
retrospect, it would have
been smarter to focus
resources on a few
truly high-risk areas,
wait till Jan. 1, 2000,
for everything else,
and fix what broke.
Looked at in that light, the
money spent on remediation, estimated
at between $100 billion and $600 billion,
was mostly wasted. 2. That’s hindsight
talking. To put things in perspective (I realize
the argument cuts both ways), many now
say the world as we know it is going to end
due to global warming. You think the smart
choice is to say: relax?
Y2K fears arose because of the old programming
practice of truncating dates to
save memory: 1964 = 64. As century’s end
approached, people realized computers
wouldn’t be able to distinguish 2000 from
1900. Programs that depended on date at
some critical branching of the decision
tree would behave oddly; some might just
stop. Nightmare scenarios abounded: aircraft
falling out of the sky, nuclear reactors
melting down, bank accounts wiped out.
Crash Y2K fix-it projects were undertaken
around the world, but many fretted they
were too little, too late. On New Year’s Eve
1999, millions stared at their TVs as midnight
approached in the easternmost time
zones, waiting for the worst.
Nothing much happened. Y2K postmortems
fell into two categories. Early ones
often took a self-congratulatory tone: Due
to our heroic efforts, civilization was saved!
Later analyses tended to the opposite view:
Y2K panic was a gross overreaction to a
minor problem. The latter line of thought is
more easily defended. A few observations:
Some problems did surface. In February 2000, the Senate Special Committee on Y2K listed more than 50 incidents in the U.S. and more than 100 elsewhere, all minor. Probably the scariest news was an alert that three Russian Scud missiles had been launched. Turns out this wasn’t a Y2K bug, just another day in the Chechnya conflict. I don’t claim the things that went wrong were inconsequential: In the U.K., for example, a medical software application gave incorrect Down syndrome-test results. But, software bugs show up all the time, and none has yet brought civilization to its knees.
The Y2K-was-real crowd explained the quiet millennial dawn by saying the developed countries that depended most on computers marshaled the most resources and fixed the problems. Less-developed countries didn’t do as much but used fewer computers, so less could go wrong. That’s not a credible argument. Italy had plenty of computers, but its Y2K effort lagged; despite this, its problems were no worse than elsewhere.
Great anxiety
was expressed about
the millions of individuals
and enterprises
relying on
personal computers,
but few problems
turned up. Two
things may account
for this. First, PCs
are replaced frequently,
and Microsoft software
was largely Y2K-compliant
by 1997. Y2K audits of PCs
typically found few problems
in machines dating from 1997 on.
Conceivably those few might have included
some critical applications, except for the
second factor, which I offer in all seriousness:
Windows is so notoriously unreliable
that no one would ever build a life-ordeath
system around it.Another concern was the embedded
microchips built into cars, medical devices,
etc. Of the 7-to 25 billion such chips
worldwide, initial estimates suggested 2 to
3 percent might fail. By late 1999, the risk
had been downgraded to 0.001 percent,
and even that was likely high. A review
of commercial aircraft found no essential
systems were date-sensitive.
Still, while all this is obvious now, it
wasn’t obvious at the start. Some contend
much Y2K expenditure was simply an effort
to fend off litigation. That may be true, but
so what? Would you want to be the bean
counter whose attempts to economize let
the nuclear missiles accidentally launch?
You can make the argument that after a
year or so of intensive work—by late 1998,
say—it should have been clear that the worst
fears were unjustified and that remediation
could be throttled back. But it was only
money, a lot of the systems and software
were due for revamp anyway, and really,
who knew? Are your insurance premiums
wasted if your house doesn’t burn down?
Comments, questions? Take it up with Cecil on the Straight Dope Message Board, StraightDope.com, or write him at the Chicago Reader, 11 E. Illinois, Chicago 60611.