25 years ago...

[ruggedscotty]

25 years ago this evening we waited....

waited for midnight with a bit of doubt.. what was it going to bring...

the Millenium Bug they called it, no one really knew if it was a genuine threat or a means for computer companies to make a bob or two, Y2K, which simply means “year 2000” (2K = 2000) was a computer flaw/bug that caused some problems (not that critical actually) when dealing with dates beyond December 31, 1999.

This was also known as the “Millennium Bug”. This bug (not a virus though, that came much later when we went into 2020 !) was experienced by computer programmers and users when the “Mayan” calendar turns to 1st of January 2000.

That is why this is called as the “Millennium Bug”

whats peoples memories of that evening, out bringing in the bells ?

Or waiting to see what the bug did ?

[Huzzah]

It wasn't a cold night, still and dry, outside in the street watching fireworks with neighbours.

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

We had ours early.

Apparently older computer systems counted up from some date in the 1960s. Each day was 1 increment. Nobody thought what would happen when the 4 digit field clicked over 9,999 days.

I can tell you it not only boogered our systems....but it took a while before anybody could work out what had gone wrong! (T'was some time in the late '90s)

[outnumbered]

People said at the time that it was all exaggerated and "fake news" to use the modern term, because nothing actually happened.

Which rather ignores the fact that the whole industry had spent years fixing stuff to make sure that nothing bad did happen !

Roll on 19 Jan 2038...

[DavieW]

The last time our town (now City) did anything to celebrate New Year.

Edited by DavieW on Tuesday 31st December 22:31

[beambeam1]

DavieW said:

Then last time our town (now City) did anything to celebrate New Year.

Same. It was pretty epic as well, nothing has been done since!

[turbomoggie]

25 years ago- no smart phones. No social media in its current format. No constantly being connected to work with emails or teams chat messages binging away in your pockets. Dial up internet. Spending time with my parents.

I was still a child. I'm sure everyone looks back with rose tinted spectacles but sometimes I really wish I could turn the clock back.


I remember the millennium bug being all over the TV and being confused as hell as to what the millennium bug was actually going to cause.

[48k]

ruggedscotty said:

a computer flaw/bug

It wasn't really a computer flaw/bug at all, it was a programming flaw. Using two digits to store the year instead of four because who could have imagined the software would still be being used when the year 2000 came around.

The industry spent years finding and fixing the issues so that the problem never materialised to any great extent.

[Henry Cat]

Both my grown up kids have a bug , one of our grandchildren too.

[Ezra]

I was sat with family and friends on our balcony overlooking Lake Zurich having a whale of a time - y2k was someone else's problem

[andym1603]

DavieW said:

Then last time our town (now City) did anything to celebrate New Year.

Inverness?

[JamesMcd]

48k said:

It wasn't really a computer flaw/bug at all, it was a programming flaw. Using two digits to store the year instead of four because who could have imagined the software would still be being used when the year 2000 came around.

The industry spent years finding and fixing the issues so that the problem never materialised to any great extent.

The next big thing to deal with is the 10k Rollover, best start preparing now!

[Tango13]

48k said:

It wasn't really a computer flaw/bug at all, it was a programming flaw. Using two digits to store the year instead of four because who could have imagined the software would still be being used when the year 2000 came around.

The industry spent years finding and fixing the issues so that the problem never materialised to any great extent.

The US Navy had the same problem with the software on their NR-1 research submarine back in the 1970's or there abouts.

Part of the problem was also a lack of memory so saving the date as a two digit number instead of four actually freed up a measurable percentage of what little memory was available.

[Doofus]

I heard that if you were a techie working for BT, and you agreed to work between Christmas and New Year, you got paid triple time with two days off in lieu for every one worked.

[Clockwork Cupcake]

outnumbered said:

People said at the time that it was all exaggerated and "fake news" to use the modern term, because nothing actually happened.

Which rather ignores the fact that the whole industry had spent years fixing stuff to make sure that nothing bad did happen !

Roll on 19 Jan 2038...

Indeed

It's rather like buying an old house with dodgy wiring, paying a team of electricians to re-wIre the house, and then afterwards moaning that it was a waste of money because your house never burned down.

[csd19]

That was the last year I properly celebrated Hogmanay, I've still got the programme/booklet plus the wristband from the Edinburgh street party somewhere

It's just another day/night now.

[Clockwork Cupcake]

48k said:

Using two digits to store the year instead of four because who could have imagined the software would still be being used when the year 2000 came around.

That's rather an oversimplification. When some of the oldest affected systems were written, filestore and memory were incredibly expensive. Using 4 digits instead of 2 because 30-odd years in the future there might be an issue just would simply not have been economically viable.

Hell, I regularly raise the Year 2038 issue in code reviews when I see a 32-bit signed integer being used to store a Unix epoch value, and I get pooh-poohed because it's still 14 years away.

Edited by Clockwork Cupcake on Tuesday 31st December 21:58

[Penny Whistle]

I did have some concerns and watched the news headlines after midnight. I had been responsible for ensuring that a certain mass transit system didn't misbehave. The system was expected to carry tens if not hundreds of thousands of passengers in the wee small hours of 1/1/2000. In the preceding 12 months or so I had found one bug which would have meant that high priority system faults would have been displayed out of order. Unlikely to have been a critical issue unless there were lots of other faults being reported. The bug was caught and fixed and my remaining concerns were unwarranted. As it was a new system, the Millenium Bug was a known issue while "my" system was being designed, tested and implemented. The other legacy parts of the system did uncover a number of other possible faults which were fixed in time.

[defblade]

Rude medical joke which I've not been able to use for, oh, maybe a quarter of a century:

Have you heard of the new lube that allows you to insert 4 digits, where you could only previously get 2?
Y2KY

[DavieW]

andym1603 said:

DavieW said:

Then last time our town (now City) did anything to celebrate New Year.

Inverness?

Perth - the Scottish one!