Current Events > So the Y2K bug scare was basically shit logic, correct?

(+) Yeah! (+)

They thought computers changing their dates to the year 00 would make the them think Oh, its 1900 and there were no computers then so Im not supposed to be working yet and shut down?

Do I have that right? Even if you know nothing about how computers work, that logic is pretty absurd, isnt it?

Ic3Bullet posted...

that logic is pretty absurd, isnt it?

No

It's flawless

---

I wonder how many people got laid cuz they thought the world was ending
---

A lot of scheduled processes, let's say "Update GPS system", in computing require that the date meet a certain requirement. If a program were poorly designed and only utilized a two digit field for the year, the the date value might be less than the value needed to prompt the process. This was an actual known issue in the decade leading up to the new millenium, though, and basically every critical computer service in the world that might be vulnerable to this pseudo-"overflow" was updated well im advanced of the New Year. You can find some evidence of things like high end vending machines in Japan though that were not fixed and caused them to crash for a few days.

Note, obviously, I'm simplifying the technical stuff and I'm not a CS expert, but the actual system vulnerabilities were real, just very overblown.

---

I had a Windows 3.1 computer that went to 1900 but it worked fine

Pogo_Marimo posted...

A lot of scheduled processes, let's say "Update GPS system", in computing require that the date meet a certain requirement. If a program were poorly designed and only utilized a two digit field for the year, the the date value might be less than the value needed to prompt the process. This was an actual known issue in the decade leading up to the new millenium, though, and basically every critical computer service in the world that might be vulnerable to this pseudo-"overflow" was updated well im advanced of the New Year. You can find some evidence of things like high end vending machines in Japan though that were not fixed and caused them to crash for a few days.

Hm. That makes sense.

well no, it was a real issue. it just wasn't a "planes drop out of the sky" issue.
they just updated the systems and that was it.

some clocks were wrong on january 1st 2000. thats about it.

---

That was the diffused message that made some people in the public panic, perhaps.

Y2K was real though, in the sense that it was a potential fault in financial systems. Computers typically stored the year value as 2 digits rather than 4. Imagine if your computer program tracking interest on client loans fell back 99 years and you owed a century of negative interest.


---

Pogo_Marimo posted...

A lot of scheduled processes, let's say "Update GPS system", in computing require that the date meet a certain requirement. If a program were poorly designed and only utilized a two digit field for the year, the the date value might be less than the value needed to prompt the process. This was an actual known issue in the decade leading up to the new millenium, though, and basically every critical computer service in the world that might be vulnerable to this pseudo-"overflow" was updated well im advanced of the New Year. You can find some evidence of things like high end vending machines in Japan though that were not fixed and caused them to crash for a few days.

This
For example, some things will error out when processes log times and the end time is before the start time.

---

I wonder if Y10K will cause problems
---

NeonOctopus posted...

I wonder how many people got laid cuz they thought the world was ending

Part of me wishes I could have taken advantage of this, but I was like 12 at the time so that wasn't an option for obvious reasons.

But yeah, people didn't know how technology worked at the time. I didn't buy into it, but I'm not surprised old people did.

---

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmzpdd4pWvM
---

don't worry, 2038 will be a better show.

---

Medussa posted...

don't worry, 2038 will be a better show.

Is this a threat?

---

Pogo_Marimo posted...

Is this a threat?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem

it's fixable in the same way y2k was, so we'll probably have plenty of time to deal with it.

---

Doe posted...

That was the diffused message that made some people in the public panic, perhaps.

Y2K was real though, in the sense that it was a potential fault in financial systems. Computers typically stored the year value as 2 digits rather than 4. Imagine if your computer program tracking interest on client loans fell back 99 years and you owed a century of negative interest.

Well said.

---

Next month you'll get interests of [this month's average balance][yearly interest%][fraction of year].
[fraction of year] should be 1/12, but with the error it could be -100 years. That's negative interest. Now you owe the bank 100 years of interests.

Edit: this is what happens when you post without reading the whole topic.
---