ABSTRACT
From the relative safety of the post-2000 era it is hard to describe the level of
anxiety that existed around the world as the year 2000 approached. More important
than the debate over when the old millennium finished and the new one started
(either the end of 1999 or the end of 2000) was the concern that the ticking over of
the computer clocks from 1999 to 2000 on a range of electronic devices, from
computers to elevator microprocessors, would cause pandemonium. The issue came
about because in the days when early computers were first being developed
computer programmers had decided on an abbreviated storage mechanism for the
date that effectively meant that the computer only tracked the last two digits
(assuming all dates would start 19) so that when it ticked over from 1999 it would
effectively go back to an assumed date of 1900. This was what was referred to as
the Y2K (Year 2000) bug. It may seem an odd thing to do now when memory is
discussed in megabytes and gigabytes, but at the time the decision was made,
computer memory was scarce and expensive and savings were considered
favourably.
