I really hadn’t thought about this much until recently. But then again, who has? Mankind as a whole has a problem understanding intangible objects. If we can’t see it, taste it, touch it, feel it, it’s hard for us to take seriously. I think that’s why we continue to pollute, destroy the ozone, put cancer causing chemicals in the water supply, etc.

My girlfriend asked me recently, "What do you want to do for New Years in 1999?".

I jokingly replied, "Run and hide!"

Her question actually got me thinking. What WILL it be like? I think you’ll be surprised.

What does it mean?

For most companies, it means their information will be meaningless. Date information is EXTREMELY important to many of our applications. It tells us when you pay your bills, when they’re late, when your Blockbuster movie is past due, when you last ordered from a catalog company, when your warranty expires, when the food goes bad, etc.

If you don’t know already, the year 2000 "bug" is that when the clocks flip, your computer thinks it’s 1900 again. January 1 will actually be represented as January 1, 1900. I tend to be a little more critical and say IT’S NO BUG. It’s a huge screw up. I would start by thanking the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) for letting this happen. The problem we face today was preventable to begin with. Their argument is that when programs were first coming to being, no one imagined them still being used by 2000. They assumed they would be replaced. They evidently didn’t understand CORPORATE AMERICA.

How does it affect me?

America is no longer an industrial economy. America’s economy is driven by information (welcome to the information revolution bay-bee). Because we rely so much on information, we (and other information driven countries) stand to suffer the MOST.

I haven’t heard any talk of this, but I am convinced that our economy will take a hit after the century changes. We will not be able to avoid a recession as our economy comes to a standstill while it tries to "clean up the mess". More than that, expect a world recession as all of the leading nations have invested in the "Information Age".

Closer to home, it’s gonna be WacKeD! Grocery inventories are going to be screwed up so you’ll have all sorts of food shortages, food spoils and the like. Prices will go up as companies will most certainly not be as efficient as they are accustomed to being now.

I really don’t expect the national power grid to go down, but expect some messed up things to happen. People will lose phone service, air traffic controllers will get messed up schedules, and the IRS will come knocking on your door ‘cause you didn’t pay your taxes for the last 99 years, and your TV guide will not be accurate.

The real danger…

What many people don’t realize is that there is a greater danger than the 2000 bug itself. Many genius programmers who are now long gone have planted EASTER EGGS in the LEGACY systems they once wrote/ supported. Easter Eggs are hidden procedures that run when you stumble onto them or activate them. A good example of an EASTER EGG is entering that code in the MORTAL KOMBAT video game to enable the blood and gore that you don’t want your kids to see.

These Easter Eggs will activate as the clock strikes 12:00… and hickory dickory dock, it doesn’t matter if you DID fix every piece of code. Some of these EASTER EGGS will be completely harmless messages, animation’s and the like… but some… I hope you didn’t piss that genius guy off before he left.

For all of you ANARCHISTS, this will be your time.

But even more menacing are Y2K virii. Hackers will come together to develop an unprecedented number of destructive applications to throw you for a loop. Think you’re pretty smug ‘cause you set up a test lab and bumped up the clock? That virus is waiting. Tic. Tock. Virii will no doubt throw several developers for a loop as they raid and pillage those FIXED applications.

As the dust settles….

Honestly, it’s already too late to try and begin to fix any LEGACY systems that are not compatible. I say this because the only way to 100% guarantee that you’ll be OK is to rewrite all of your old applications so they don’t crash… even if they connect to other systems (it’s called validation folks). What so many people are doing (thinking they’re saving themselves a lot of work… sheesh) is they are searching through the code and fixing what they find. GOOD LUCK. Just rewrite the code, improve some processes while your at it, and go on. But like I said, it’s already too late to do that before 2000.

Conclusion

There’s no way around it. We’re gonna be screwed for a while. To what extent, I can’t tell. But I can tell you this; We will be most vulnerable immediately after 2000. If someone had hostile intentions to America, I would expect it then.

Nevertheless, I think we’ll get through it. Our parents saw Vietnam, our grandparents saw WWII, and we’ll get to see the year 2000 catastrophe. 2001 should be a better year. As we get to 2005, our economy should bounce back HARD and we’ll see a giant trend for mergers as the large companies who DID survive 2000 will gobble up the small ones. Everyone will still hate lawyers although they will have had a hay-day with lawsuits.

So sit back, relax and ponder how exciting it will be…

Duncan