Getting Started on the Internet

Michael Devitt

The Millennium Bug: Preparing Yourself for the Year 2000 Problem

It sounds like a fiendish plot from one of those old science 
fiction movies.  On January 1, 2000, up to 90% of the world's 
computers will stop functioning.  Power plants stop producing energy;
assembly lines grind to a halt; software programs crash or display 
error messages; insurance claims are declared invalid or can't be 
processed; and people can't balance their checkbook on their 
personal computers.

Well, it's not an otherworldly plan to bring the Earth to its' knees.  Unfortunately, it's not a work of fiction, either.  The source of 
all this gloom and doom is what's known as "the millennium bug," 
a computer glitch that affects older computers and software programs 
because they are unable to recognize the time change from one 
century to the next.  How did this nightmarish situation come into 
being?  How will it affect you?  And can anything be done before 
it's too late?

A Brief History of the Millennium Bug

It began with the birth of modern computers in the 1960s and 70s.  
At that time, computers had very little memory and storage space.  
Efficiency was essential to computer programmers, so in order to 
save space, it was decided to use just two digits to identify the 
calendar year in computer hardware and software.  Thus, instead of 
typing in "1997," the year would be identified simply as "97." 

Money was another factor involved in the decision to use just two 
digits.  Today, the cost of storing 400 million dates -- birthdays, anniversaries, payroll periods, hire dates and retirement dates, 
for example -- is roughly $1,100.  Thirty years ago, however, it 
could have cost as much as $40 million to store the same amount of 
information.  

By cutting the calendar year to just two digits, corporations have
saved millions of dollars over the past few decades.  But in a 
little more than two years, that bill will be due ... and what a
bill it will be.  Conservative estimates range that it will cost 
between $300 billion to $1.3 trillion worldwide to solve the problem 
completely.

"This is the biggest technical screw-up in history," says Bill 
Schoen, a computer programmer with Ford Motor Company, who was one 
of the first to write about the year 2000 problem back in 1983.  
"This scares me.  Everybody missed the boat on this."

What Will Those Extra Two Digits Cost?

When the computer programmers of decades past decided to use a two 
digit code for the calendar year, they assumed that someone would 
have devised a solution to the millennium bug well before the end 
of the century.  Unfortunately, every reputable computer analyst who 
has tried solving the problem agrees that there are no prospects for 
fixing the situation in one fell swoop.  This means that in most 
cases, businesses and institutions will have to go over every line 
of software code that they have, looking for any instances where a 
date comes into play, and then fixing those lines one by one.

For many large corporations, this could prove to be an incredibly 
costly, time-consuming task. Chase Manhattan Bank, for example, has 
more than 280 million lines of computer code in its databases.  
Eighty percent of those lines contain some sort of date function, and
Most programming companies are offering their date-fixing services 
starting at a dollar per line of code.  Citibank has another 600 
million lines of similar code.  And in one Fortune 500 company, 
computer programmers have already spent more than 130,000 man hours  
(or the equivalent of 15 years of work) cleaning up the software 
glitch.

Ramifications of the Millennium Bug

If a company is unable (or can't afford) to rework the necessary lines 
of code before the end of the millennium, the results could be 
disastrous.  For example, if an organization's accounting department 
has a computer crash, that company might be unable to issue checks 
with the correct date and amount or send incorrect billing statements.  Appointment records, financial transactions, patient schedules and 
profiles, employee hire and termination dates, vacation and pay period
records could all be wiped out, or at the least, they might have to 
be reentered with the correct information.

For some business owners, the problem could actually strike a year 
earlier.  That's because some older computer programs use the number 
"99" to mean infinity.  This means that an employee who is supposed 
to get a check or statement on January 1, 1999 might not get a
statement at all -- or they may get a signed check for an infinite 
amount of money.  Although this might seem like a great deal to the 
recipient of such a check, in reality, nobody knows exactly what may
happen in some cases.

How to Make Yourself Year-2000 Compliant

If you've purchased a computer within the last couple of years, 
chances are that the hardware and software you're using won't have a 
problem.  This is especially true of the newer Macintosh and Windows 
95 machines, which have incorporated year 2000 capabilities into 
their operating systems.  However, if you're using an older machine, 
or if some of the software you run was made more than a few years 
ago, it's wise to take some of the following precautions to make
sure your system will still be functioning in a couple of years:

1. Contact all of the companies that manufacture your computer 
hardware and software.  Ask them what plans they have about fixing 
the millennium bug and see if it will cost anything to have your 
computer upgraded.  If you're considering buying a new computer, ask 
the manufacturer if their system can handle the date change (believe 
it or not, as of last year, IBM was still selling some software that 
was non-year 2000 compliant).

2. If you work for a large corporation, talk to the information 
services or accounting departments and ask if they've started working 
on the task at hand.  Many organizations in the U.S. still aren't 
aware of the computer problems the millennium bug will cause, and the 
situation is even worse overseas.  The earlier you start working on 
the problem, the lesser your chances of a system crash on New Year's 
Day a few years from now.

3. Consider buying an inventory tool.  It's a type of program that 
will scan your PC's lines of computer code and list any instances of 
date fields in the codes.  By not having to look through every 
single line of code, your organization could save a lot of time and 
money.

4. Ask everyone you know who has a computer -- friends, colleagues, 
coworkers and patients -- what they know about the millennium bug, 
and see what steps they've taken to protect themselves.  If nothing 
else, at least you'll be spreading the word and informing others 
about the situation.

In addition to the above suggestions, there is an entire website (www.year2000.com) that has been created just for the millennium bug.  
It's filled with articles on the subject and news releases from a 
Large group of hardware and software manufacturers.  The site also 
has a number of software programs you can download to test your 
system and make sure it will still be functional in the year 2000 
and beyond.

As stated before, there is no simple solution to the millennium bug.  
If you weren't aware about the potential problems that could occur 
before reading this article, we recommend you get started on the 
situation immediately.  If not, the effects could be disastrous.  It 
could easily cost thousands of dollars in the future to fix problems 
that could have been averted had the proper steps been taken in time.

In our next issue of Dynamic Chiropractic, we'll be providing readers 
with a list of the top 50 web sites for 1997.  Future issues will 
include a list of chiropractic resources available on the Internet, 
and information on doing your taxes online.  As always, we welcome 
your comments. If you have any questions or suggestions about this 
column, please contact us.

References

1. Firms race clock to avert "millennium bug" bite. Detroit News, 
December 3, 1995.
2. Ibid.
3. Seiler J. The bug in the machine. Orange County Register, June 
29, 1997.

Michael Devitt
Huntington Beach, California
Editorial@DCMedia.com