How did the harmless passage of pre-Y2K "trigger dates" affect your perception of Y2K in 1999?

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Back in 1998, there were a bunch of pre-Y2K "trigger" dates publicized that would occur in 1999, which were supposedly going to be symptomatic of the true-blue Year 2000 Y2K problem. As best as I can remember, these dates were tied to when businesses and governments would account for FISCAL YEAR 2000 (as opposed to calendar year 2000). April 1, 1999 was, I believe, the first of these "trigger" dates, as at least two states would begin their fiscal year 2000 accounting. July 1, 1999 was the next biggie, as numerous states began fiscal year 2000; with Oct 1, 1999 being the biggest pre-Y2K "trigger" date, as the Federal Government now rolled over to FY 2000.

Like the subsequent Y2K (non-)event itself, all of these "trigger" dates passed harmlessly and innocuously. The question that pollies posed at the time was: If all these Y2K-LIKE problem dates were passing by without problems, didn't it make sense to assume that the Y2K date itself would also?

I was not impressed with this argument for two main reasons:

1) The true-blue Year 2000 (Y2K) problem had many components. These included:

a) Embedded chips.

b) Computer operating systems.

c) Various and diverse software applications.

Whereas, the fiscal year 2000 problem was limited solely to financial software applications, which supposedly could easily be worked around by numerous methods, such as simply "fudging" the fiscal year 2000 start/end dates. (I recall someone claiming that their company simply introduced a few additional weeks to fiscal year 1999 until they got their software revised.)

2) The idea that MULTIPLE "trigger" dates passed harmlessly was overblown, in the sense that if fiscal year 2000 problems did not happen on April 1, 1999 they likely would not occur at all on any fiscal year 2000 rollover. The pollies, of course, had a field day with these dates, waiting until each one passed and then saying, "Gee, the lights are still on and everything works!", but the reality is that once April 1, 1999 passed, the other subsequent dates became effectively meaningless.

Comments?

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), September 07, 2000

Answers

So it would stand to reason that any intelligent human being would have ceased to worry about projected Y2K problems on April 2, 1999.

Comments

-- I (h@ve.spoken), September 07, 2000.


Interesting question, KOS.

A year ago, I wrote "To hear longtime IT people like Yourdon and Hamasaki talk, every company that does anything useful revolves around IT like a planet around the sun. The corollary is that if IT sneezes, the company dies of pneumonia. IT people are convinced that the company lives or dies based on software, much like the financial people think the company's lifeblood is money, upper management thinks it's leadership, and the union thinks it's labor."

So the "trigger date" argument was based on the observation that serious y2k damage would result from mainframe glitches moreso than from any other source. And some of those who actually wrote all that mainframe code were well aware that mainframes would encounter a *whole bunch* of invalid dates, or do invalid calculations, at those times. And in fact this happened, but didn't escape the glass rooms.

Yourdon went so far as to call these dates good, solid indicators of what might be expected around rollover. Since I'm not a mainframe person myself, I was willing to take Yourdon at his word. He went so far as to write that those FY rollovers were as likely to go smoothly as pigs were likely to fly, he was so convinced we'd see Big Trouble.

For me, then, those spike dates were critical. They were a bellwether telling us if the Great Gurus (who knew where the bodies were buried) knew what they were talking about. When nothing happened, several of the previously most credible pessimists stood revealed as *at least* having a poor grasp of the big picture.

We also got another key datum. If those dates *really were* excellent indicators as Yourdon wrote, then they should be *treated* as indicators. If newsworthy problems at spike dates indicate big trouble later, then NO problems at spike dates should indicate small trouble later. But Yourdon, Hamasaki et al soldiered right on anyway. Apparently, they were good indicators ONLY if they indicated what Y&H were selling. If they indicated the opposite, then post facto they must have been *bad* indicators, right?

For me, integrity obligated Yourdon to stick with his "indicator" theory and admit, RIGHT THEN, that he'd misjudged the situation and the FY rollovers demonstrated his misjudgement by contradicting his prediction. When instead he ignored his own assessment and kept pushing his wares, I started becoming extremely suspicious of ALL sources of doomy predictions.

And so I notice you going through the same backpedaling Yourdon did. "Gee, my predictions failed. Well, maybe financial software isn't that important, and maybe embeddeds are the real danger, and maybe dates can be fudged, and maybe operating systems or applications or *something* are the real bugaboo." There wasn't any good evidence for ANY of those maybes, but you know how it is. The Doom Must Go On!

You write "the reality is that once April 1, 1999 passed, the other subsequent dates became effectively meaningless." How absolutely true that was! *Including* the rollover itself.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), September 07, 2000.


Good evening your majesty!

My concern over Y2K issues waned in early 1999, but I was still suprised at the near total absence of serious problems at rollover. The innocuous passage of trigger dates was the first indication that problems were being fixed at a much faster pace than many of the "experts" predicted. The banking industry in particular had way too much to lose to not get their act together.

Most of the observations from the likes of North and others didn't carry too much weight with me for a few reasons.

First was his bizzare agenda - the guy was hoping for a meltdown, and it's a human trait to see what you want to see, doomers and pollies alike, and zealots in particular. For many people it is easier to live in denial than question your assumptions.

Second was his attitude toward the legalistic corporate responses to Y2K inquiries. It's ludicrous to expect that huge corporations would absolutely guarantee no problems at all. I wouldn't believe them if they did! There would have been too many lawyers waiting to take advantage of that kind of language.

The third reason is related to the first two: "Just because you cant know everything, doesn't mean you don't know anything." North didn't seem to understand this. although he seems to forgive himself in this regard. I will give him credit for the massive links and a witty commentary, though.

As far as embeddeds were concerned, I agree with your earlier post that it had the scariest potential because of the sheer numbers involved and the difficulty of replacing or reprogramming them. The more I looked into it though, it became apparent that there were not any serious problems with the chips themselves. I'm no expert, but I have some experience with PLC's and PROM's, a little digging turned up the truth.

Allen Bradley, Siemens, and Mitsubishi - the big three PLC makers, had no serious concerns. The volume of information they posted on their web sites seemed to intimidate a lot of people, but it was mostly related to date displays problems. I think they might have been better off if they hadn't even reported display problems. People like Bruce Beach were obviously not qualified to draw any conclusions, but if you were one of the vast majority of intelligent people who don't know what a PLC is I can understand why folks got concerned.

I guess that was part of the problem, and it has to do with living in a society dominated by technology. Dismissing for the moment all of the fringe groups, fringe agendas, and fringe mindsets that latch onto a thing like Y2K, there were only two basic communities left:

1) The group of people thoughtful enough to understand the potential for problems - let's not kid ourselves - serious problems did exist, and were fixed. We dodged a slow moving bullet.

2) Sheeple. I guess ignorance is bliss, or maybe bliss is ignorance. If you're not the least bit concerned about the ugly side of technological progress, or choose to not give it any thought, then you're just not paying attention.

Cheers

-- thinkstwice (thinkstwice@earthlink.com), September 07, 2000.


Boy, I sure am glad that I'm home early tonight, to discuss this one...

OK (Andy Ray), get ready to jump on me again, but all I've got to say is: IT AIN'T Y2K YET! (speaking in the past tense)...

I've always said, and still do, that the number of programs that do date forcasting is tiny, when compared to the total number of programs that (had) a date problem. You mentioned fiscal years. The only problem with these applications is that they are telling you what you will be spending over the next year, or what you spent last year, NOT WHAT YOU ARE SPENDING TODAY! Those that are PROJECTIONS are an estimate of where one will be, next year. They are not the same applications that actually write the checks, or make the deposits, or produce the ATB report, TODAY! I'm still sticking to my guns on this one, CURRENT-DATE (in COBOL terms) was the real (big) problem here...

Y2K was recognized to be a problem in the '60s, when IBM introduced the System/360 (followed by the the 370 and 390). The hardware/OS combination gave the programmer a 2 digit year. But 30-40 years ago, nobody ever thought that their program would still be alive and ticking at the turn of the century. After all, technology marches on, etc. etc. Hummm, now we know better...

I remember a post on the old forum, from a guy in the banking industry, who's company policy was to never use the SYSTEM DATE. Instead, they used the date from a "control card" that was changed every time a "job" was run on the mainframe. It was always a 4 digit year. This policy was in place since the 70's. They were doing 30 year mortgages. The only Y2K problems he was having was from other "imported" data. They did have a few cases over the years when the operator forgot to change the date, but I consider these "normal" type problems.

My point is that those who did need to be "ready" early were well aware of their situation. Some were ready 30 years before CDC.

But like I've always said, these systems were a tiny part of the total Y2K problem. And if I remember correctly, we did have at least a few pre-CDC problems, didn't we? Hence, I expected the same FACTOR of problems to happen at CDC...

Sure am glad I was wrong...

<:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), September 07, 2000.


This thread is not worthy of my response, but because of my great love for mankind I will drink the sewer-water out of the straw (proverbial speaking of course).

Folks, this forum has run its course. It is more than a trifle boring (of course I check it every day, but many of you think that I am more than a trifle boring). I barely see my magnificent name mentioned anymore, and this just should not be.

I have decided to take legal action against any post that is not up to my pendantic standards. I will represent myself in court, and will win against you knuckle draggers. Be prepared to only be able to afford dog food for dinner.

-- Len Becker (lbecker@midwestonline.con), September 07, 2000.



It didn't bother me then and doesn't bother me now. Why not? Because we have been going down hill all thu the 1990s. If people what to stick their heads in the sand let them.

-- ET (bneville@zebra.net), September 07, 2000.

KOS,

Good question, I haven't posted here in a while but it's one of my favorite topics if I still have any with respect to Y2k.

Trigger dates were absolutely critical in my ongoing assessment of Y2k. It took a while for it to really sink in, but to me these non-events were the first time I was starting to feel I could touch down with some REALITY about y2k. Up to then I had felt lost in a sea of words and arguments and bandied-about by my own conflicting emotions about "Y2k", but with the non-triggering of these dates, one after another, by June, I started to really believe that I could finally trust my god-given SENSES about Y2k.

But I think what REALLY persuaded my fear-addled brain more than anything else that Y2k was going to be manageable were these things:

  1. trigger dates not triggering, AND

  2. Yourdon waffling and bowing out of the Y2k scene, AND

  3. the ensuing mob psychology and virtual police state that developed on TB1.

To me the coinciding, in time, of these THREE things spoke VOLUMES more than even the most rarefied efforts by the most tireless and talented debaters on the subject of y2k (with all due appreciation - for the contributions of same) or even the most clear statements by business and industry that things were looking better. In short, it was NO coincidence. It was spring 1999 and despite my stubborn insistence on going on preparing like a maniac, my perceptions were slowly shifting to optimistic..... But sometimes something needs to hit you in the GUT before you're really convinced of it. Well that's what did it for me. :-)

This does not mean I claim that I therefore "knew" the Big Trigger Date (CDC) would be a complete NON-event, I did not. The crucial thing that came for me around June 1999 is that the "fear" aspect of Y2k faded away for me and I could get on with my life and forget about Y2k if I wanted to. And that is just what I did for the next six months, pretty much. Now when absolutely NOTHING happened at rollover I sorta had to pick my jaw up off the floor... for I had expected to see some kind of shit happening here or there or somewhere ... which is part of why I came back after rollover, to take part in the discussions about that. (Besides which, I had developed a certain affection for some of us, and a certain morbid curiosity about others of us!)

BTW I find it a little strange KOS that you, as such a big part of the TB1 forum, are yet so vague about just which dates WERE the trigger dates... Oh well, details, details..... (And seriously, don't you think it a little odd that no-one who was into the trigger-date thingy came up with "Oh, those are just look-ahead dates!" BEFORE the fact?) Flint... you expounded on this better than me but I just had to get my licks in ;^)

-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), September 08, 2000.


(And seriously, don't you think it a little odd that no-one who was into the trigger-date thingy came up with "Oh, those are just look-ahead dates!" BEFORE the fact?) Flint... you expounded on this better than me but I just had to get my licks in ;^)

I know of at least two people who before the April 1 date suggested the trigger dates would not be catastrophic. One was PNG, the businessman living in Japan. His argument, even though he did take Y2k seriously at that time, was that fiscal year glitches in financial software wouldn't cause the kind of glitches the public would be likely to notice. Only glitches that could affect distribution or production would be noticeable to the public, and fiscal year glitches were not the kind that could affect these areas.

The other person who suggested trigger dates wouldn't be catastrophic was Ed Yourdon himself. My take on Yourdon's comments at different times on the fiscal year rollover issue was that he believed businesses who had not taken Y2k seriously yet would be forced to do so when fiscal year problems began to show up in the bookkeeping department. To the best of my knowledge, Yourdon never predicted power outages as a result of the fiscal year rollovers in 1999.

This is a quote by Ed Yourdon shortly before April 1, 1999.

http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000f20

Will something really happen or just another April Fool's Day?

Well, we know that it won't have any impact on embedded systems -- so we're not going to see any failures of process control systems, refineries, utilities, or things of that sort.

It also means that we're not going to see problems in PC BIOS chips or non-compliant PC operating systems.

The problems will exist in application programs that are aware of, and make use of, the end-date of the fiscal year, i.e., March 31, 2000. Thus, we're almost certainly talking about financial systems, tax systems, etc. It's likely to have the greatest impact on report- writing programs that spew out spreadsheet-looking reports with rows and columns of numbers, showing budget figures for all 12 months of the fiscal year.

Several people have argued that we probably won't see any problems in the day-to-day transaction-processing systems, e.g., the systems that process daily receipts and daily disbursements of funds. However, if there are any logic-checks that ask questions like, "Is this disbursement legitimate within the context of a full fiscal year?", THAT could cause problems.

As with most other aspects of Y2K, the bottom line is that we really don't know where and how the problems will hit. What's fairly obvious, given the experience from the Euro rollover, is that any minor or modest problems will be hidden pretty well within the bureaucracy. However, if it causes something comparable to the NJ food-stamp problem (yes, yes, I know that the officials have now described that problem as a non-Y2K problem), then it will be hard to cover up. If a hundred thousand retired civil service workers don't get their monthly pension check, you'll definitely see it on the evening news program.

It will be interesting to see how it turns out...

Ed

-- Ed Yourdon (ed@yourdon.com), March 28, 1999.

-- It was (a@bookkeeping.issue), September 08, 2000.


There was already a consensus on the old forum by March of last year that fiscal year rollovers would not be life-threatening and maybe not even be noticeable the the public.

http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000add

fiscal years reported as yr 2000

-- It was (a@bookkeeping.problem), September 08, 2000.


SNOOORRRRR!!!!!!!!!

Or should I say King Of SNOOORRRRR,This crap has been bandied about ad nauseum months ago,but you were in hiding (oh,I meant sabattical) and for all the esoteric introspection is still about as clear as a mudpuddle(did I say MUD?) I was wrong,you were wrong,some other people were wrong,the rest of America and the world did not know or give a shit,the rest were RIGHT!!!.

If these deep y2k questions were soooo important you would have stuck around and had true intellectual discourse after the CDC,without making this supposed grand re-entry all giddy bout dissecting the emotions and technology of y2k.

LMFAO : )

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), September 08, 2000.



I'm with Flint & Debbie on this one.

In 1998, I was seriously worried about Y2K impacts -- partly because I'd only heard one side of the story up to a point. I found Biffy through a stroke of luck, and then I started hearing two completely opposite viewpoints. Around that time, Yourdon and Hamasaki both said that effects on 1/1/1999 would Tell The Tale. I decided to take them at their word.

Needless to say, when [cue trumpet blast] Nothing (important) Happened, I fell off the fence on the Debunker side.

Ol' Muddy, above, says The pollies, of course, had a field day with these dates, waiting until each one passed and then saying, "Gee, the lights are still on and everything works!" Well, sure! The dates were set by the Doomer Technical Staff! The Muddy One, like all the hardcore doomers, still blithely ignores any information that doesn't fit the preordained conclusion -- even when the info comes from those who otherwise reinforce said conclusion.

Eventually, the doomer position devolved to "things will be bad because WE SAY SO, and you need to Prepare." And so, I leave you with my semi- famous tag line from last year.

Fasten your seatbelt, don't buy a freekin' tank.

-- Dirt Road (gotit@got.way.beyond.it), September 08, 2000.


Quite a bit.

By the time July rolled around I was HOPING we'd get SOMETHING in the way of breakdowns. Give me a little justification for spending all that time prepping, please. One whole report from a close friend that the NYC Board of Education had serious accounting problems which were worked around until fixed in a matter of two weeks.

I realized most of the posters on TB2000 not only had poor manners, such as yourself (you miserable piece of human waste), but they really had no clue as to what might transpire the rest of the way into 2000. So I left the board and its vile, putrid excuses for humanity & continued to prep because it was fun and a continuing education course of sorts. End of story.

-- Bingo1 (howe9@shentel.net), September 08, 2000.


My biggest worry with those pre-rollover dates was problems would become well known and suddenly everyone would start preparing, driving prices up and availability down. Like Sysman, I was not confusing Y2K with rinky-dink accounting software problems, and with each date passage, resolved to prepare all the harder while supplies were cheap and available.

-- WD-40 (wd40@squeak.not), September 08, 2000.

Why even respond to this straw headed straw man who when mixed with mud ends up the Brickhead he is?
Its SO OBVIOUS that the control of the "Sheeple" before, during and after 1/1/2000 will prevent the "real truth" from every coming out.

We know that the failure of many of the early Mantras from the Doom Directors shilling for TPTB created an obstacle for the Master Plan by the Illuminati which was to force the Stock Market down and buy on all dips so that after Y2k, "The Rulers" could reap enormous profits.

As 1998 ended, it became clear that one early Mantra was going to have to be replaced: "The Iron Triangle" of the Banks, Power and Phone. Since it began to look like they would be able to handle Y2k, The RULERS decided to emphasize the "domino" or "cascading failures that can't be fixed" side of the Doom Scenarios. Thus, the Real Insiders, added the "trigger dates" and "external data errors" to the Gloom Story.

First of all, the "trigger dates" were a red herring which enabled the Illuminati to perfect their total control mentioned above while THE REAL Ace in the Hole for the Zombies was the "outside data pollution" that could not by definition effect programs until 1/1/2000. It turned out later, this was a bad decision on the part of one of the new members of the Rulers Strategy Board and he has been sent down for re-training and re-programming just like a lowly Sheeple. Undone it seems by the full scale integrated testing of both the Phone Companies and the Wall Street trading systems. That such a weak argument could be used by The Rulers shows that there are times even they make errors (as they have clearly done trying to push algore instead of one of their own, Jay Rockefeller III).

Since it was assumed by the Fronts known as the Doom Zombies that "problems would be progressive" until the point was reached when "cascading failures" could not be stopped, it was possible for the "Thought Police" of the RULERS, to systematically isolate any single one of the over ONE MILLION PEOPLE in the I.T. and other departments of all the Corporations the RULERS own and effect the shut down of information.

Now how can we know this? ISN'T THAT OBVIOUS? The first "trigger dates" were minor. Whenever any "worker" began to talk, they were identified and then carefully "re-programmed" so that they would remain silent in the future.

This was a major undertaking but after all, there was in the USA alone some 50-100 Billion U$ spent on "the Y2k Problem" and a great deal of that was to STIFLE anyone who talked.

So it should be obvious that is why today we can't find any documented evidence of failures around the Trigger Dates. Each one had its own Sheeple who underwent the "re-programming".

In addition, two other Red Herrings were circulated by the paid agents of the Illuminati who had infiltrated the Doom Zombies (a rather easy thing to do when one has at hand the IQ test scores of the Doomzies indicating sub-room temperature performance).

The General Sheeple heard about the other two Trial Balloons as "The JoAnne Effect" and "The 9/9/99 or All Nines Problem". Here we had simplicity itself. A dense bookeeper stated that by the closing of the annual statements /books for the RETAIL industry in Jan. 1999, we would have a look ahead as the Big Boxes were reset for the Fiscal Year that spanned 1999 to 2000. She named many of the major Retailers who ran on this Fiscal Year then carefully stated that she did not thing much would happen. This became the "Method" for later dismissing the All Nines, 4/15/99 and the biggie: July,1999 when purportedly many of the states would find their errors. The addition of the CHANT: "Its not 2000 yet and thats why we call it the Year 2000 Problem" insured that the Doom Zombies could hold the center of the Stage on the Net while TPTB bought every last share of common stock and some Net Dot Coms on every single down day before 2000 arrived. We know now they reaped an enormous gain by selling at the top to the greatly relieved Y2k Sheeple."

Nothing new here, just another confirmation of how "The Rulers" maintain Control.

The final master stroke of the plan which did indeed enrich the Coffers of The Rulers came by April 1, 2000 when the DJIA and Nasdaq were at the peak as their Wall Street flunkies dumped all the stock bought between the start of the Public Side of the Y2k Crisis in 1997 which saw all the forces of the known Extremists (except the JBS) jump on the Y2k Money Train (or at least try to for those who tried to catch that train in 1998 as "vendors" ended up with "preps" in inventory they thought they would sell. This lead to current Salve for their wounded psyche: "I'm glad I prepped. I would never be without my preps ever again."


And back behind the closed doors where TPTB meet, the skilled Directors of the Farce play tapes and slides for presentations by the Y2k Doom Troop and LAUGH THEMSELVES SILLY as do most AMERICANS along with the ENTIRE EARTH who never thought Y2k would be a problem that could not be overcome.

To those who would point to unemployed programmers and wonder where the programmer shortage is, we see the last part of the Evil Doings of the Rulers. If you think about it, do you know one single one of them who ever encountered a Y2k problem? Clearly, the overall plan to silence any who saw all the "Really, really big problems" by keeping them in the Corps the Rulers own and raising their pay after "re- training" has worked completely.

-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), September 08, 2000.


LOONLY LOGIC FROM A BS ARTIST. WHAT is the single most important set of programs in major Corporations? What are the programs that "can't fail"?

NOW READ IDIOT LUBE-JOB as he dismisses them as "rinky"?????

My biggest worry with those pre-rollover dates was problems would become well known and suddenly everyone would start preparing, driving prices up and availability down. Like Sysman, I was not confusing Y2K with rinky-dink accounting software problems, and with each date passage, resolved to prepare all the harder while supplies were cheap and available. -- WD-40 (wd40@squeak.not), September 08, 2000.

What a MAROOOOOON



-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), September 08, 2000.


Thanks for the responses so far, this once again looks like a high- caliber thread. (Yes, I saw CPR's posts -- both of them. Just grin and bear it.)

Just a few direct responses to questioners...

Debbie:

You have amazing perception to be able to spot my suspicious memory lapse regarding those very important dates. Gawd, I'll bet people who know you in real life can't get away with anything.

What I was trying to do, and I obviously should have been more up- front about it, was allow some leeway to those who might decide that there are other "trigger" dates besides the ones that I listed. In particular, January 1, 1999, was considered a trigger date by some because of a supposed one-year lookahead that some (again, financial) applications do. Then, additionally, there was the Global Positioning System (GPS) rollover that occured Aug 21-22, 1999. The GPS rollover had NOTHING to do with Y2K per se, yet many accepted it as a trigger date because of the technical similarity.

However, the only trigger dates that I personally ever saw as being significant, and the only ones really accepted at ye olde TB2K that I recall, were the fiscal year rollover dates that I listed.

capnfun:

I am not going to take up space on yet another thread attempting to prove to you that I never came to the TB2K "spinoff" forum until last week. I will, though, say that sometimes it is MUCH BETTER to allow a "cool down" period, THEN approach an issue, rather than try to tackle it in the aftermath.

I felt quite drained post-rollover; I'll bet I'm not the only one. I took about 8 weeks and refrained from hardly ANY Internet surfing. When Yourdon started his "Y2K Fans" discussion forum in April, I participated, until that pretty much fizzled out over the Summer.

Much of the threads that I've started, such as this one, I had planned to bring up at "Y2K Fans". Note that, 9 months after rollover, this is probably the last time anyone is going to be interested enough, and fresh enough, to explore these topics. If you are not interested, don't participate.

Bingo1 & WD-40:

INTERESTING contrast -- you both kept-on-prepping, yet had totally different reactions to the trigger date non-events.

CPR:

Drink much coffee, do you?

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), September 08, 2000.


What capnfun said.

KOS get your head out of the sand, er... ah... mud.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), September 08, 2000.


January 1, 1999 wasn't one of the fiscal year 2000 rollover dates, but a few things did happen that day as a result of date bugs.

http://www.bergen.com/biz/early05199901052.htm

Link

Scattered '99 glitches hint at year 2000 woes

Tuesday, January 5, 1999

The Associated Press

NEW YORK -- Worries that the first few days of the new year would bring computer problems similar to those expected when the dreaded Y2K bug hits appear to be mostly unfounded.

There were concerns that computers looking a year ahead could crash or that the "99" in "1999" would signal programs to cease calculating, and a few glitches did pop up.

For instance:

In Singapore, computerized taxi meters went dead at noon Jan. 1 for about two hours, The Sunday Times reported.

Computers at police offices in three Swedish airports failed at midnight Jan. 1, when they were unable to recognize the year 1999. Travelers who needed temporary passports were unable to have them issued, although the problem was fixed some hours later, said the Sunday Telegraph in Sydney, Australia.

In Anchorage, Alaska, the AM radio station KFQD was unable to receive The Associated Press' news stories when the date changed. Jay White, chief engineer for the station, said the software for reading the incoming stories went down Saturday morning and wasn't brought back up until Monday morning. When the date changed to Jan. 1, 1999, a bug in the out-of-date software hit the "99" and ceased to function.

"These are kind of whispers in the wind for what's going to happen in the year 2000," said Chris LeTocq, a year 2000 analyst at Dataquest Inc., a computer research firm. "If you're hearing stories of software having problems with 1999, that means year 2000 is real."

One of the problems that some organizations faced this weekend was the number 9, which is the highest digit that can be plugged into a date code. Programmers over time have used a series of 9s to indicate "end of file" or "cease operating," and this code can make the following dates risky:

Jan. 1, 1999, the beginning of the last year in the century.

April 9, 1999, the 99th day of the last year for the century.

Sept. 9, 1999, the four nines of "9-9-99."



-- a slice of the (y2k@that.was), September 08, 2000.


Why even respond to this straw headed straw man who when mixed with mud ends up the Brickhead he is?

so saith the creep. too funny.......

I'm with Cappy Fun, ROFLMAO

I 'needed' the laugh. :-)

-- consumer (shh@aol.com), September 08, 2000.


KoS,

Short answer: The passing of all of these dates had almost no effect on my fears and preps. In fact, I focused very little on them almost from the beginning, viewing all of them in the aggregate as almost a superficial diversion from what I felt was the crucial, principle issue -- relatively speaking, anyway.

The principal reason: Embeddeds, and the fact (at least as far as I knew and could understand -- very wrongly, as it turned out) that they would not be "tested" EN MASSE, all over the world, and in REAL TIME until 1/1/00. And from there, we have the domino effect.

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), September 08, 2000.


SLICE,,,,dated when? And nothing came true DID IT? DUNCE

Tuesday, January 5, 1999<------



-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), September 08, 2000.

Well, maybe CPR, you are too arrogant to notice, your fellow traveler.

-- FOR SALE (vehicles@thecurb.com), September 08, 2000.

KOS,

You went out of your way to insult me, degrade me and attempt to publically humiliate me.

I tried to explain why you doomzies were wrong, I did ot insult you are try to put anyone down in the process. Just attempted to explain to the best of my abilities.

You insisted up to the end that I did not have the background or intellegence to know what I was talking about.

I believe time has proven I did and do. You owe me, personally, an apology. There was no justification for the way you, and others, treated me on TB2000.

I just ignored the insults and continued on in my attempt to at least save a few people from the fear you people were perpitrating. I believe I managed to plant the seed of doubt in their minds about the the Bull Shit you and your kind kept feeding them.

You were pretty cocky back then, thinking you knew so much and were so right.

The fact is that I was and am a hell of a lot smarter and know a hell of a lot more about Y2K and technology then any of you did.

You come in here acting so nice and friendly~perhaps you should re-read some of the things you said to me, without any justification other than the fact thet your ego demanded that you be right. How does it feel to know that a WOMAN is so much smarter then you are? You and your mud wrestling~ is nothing more than an attempt to degrade and belittle women. I have a saying about men with ego problems like yours.....

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), September 15, 2000.


WHERE IS KO-PAIN'S SO-CALLED "APOLOGY"????

http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-post-reply-form.tcl AND.......WHy is "shakey's" here:



--

-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), September 15, 2000.


I realize that you probably won't listen to this, but I feel I must try anyway. CPR, you are not a hero who has saved the country from the menace of the "doomers". There never was such a menace. It is completely imaginary. You are a real estate salesman with no "special powers". You are completely unimportant except to yourself and your friends, if you have any. Your delusions of grandeur and your delusions of persecution indicate that you are seriously ill and need help right away ... before you start acting out your fantasies in "real life" and hurt yourself or someone else. Please seek counseling immediately, for everyone's sake.

-- ABC (a@b.c), September 15, 2000.

Guess the KLAVIN WINNER Decker didn't like this one either.

http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-post-reply-form.tcl

WHY is he "picking his spots" to post?? I know he didn't like this thread:

LINK

http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=003oFB

-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), September 15, 2000.

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