Why didn't the year 2000 bug happen (Y2K)?

Question

All the computers were meant to go haywire and all the nuclear bombs were meant to go off in the year 2000. I think it was called the millennium bug or Y2K

I'm a lawyer and I remember at the time we were all writing leases about the year 2000 bug and if it happened whose responsible for it etc.

Does anyone know why this didn't happen?

Answer 1

It had nothing to do with nuclear bombs.  It was simply that computer programs were set up with dates for the year starting with 19.  We had a lot of warning that things might happen on the wrong date, eg:  2000 would be taken as 1900.  So they thought that things like utility payments might show up as being overdue, and be shut off.  

The various companies making software changed dates to call for a 4 digit year.  Other companies reviewed the software they used and checked with the software companies to make sure theses were all taken care of before the end of 1999.  We made that a project at the company I worked for.  Every department made lists of the software they used, and turned it in to the the IT department for review.  We and other companies got everything taken care of in order to prevent any mixups.  

Answer 2

Because people talk and once someone believes what they say, it's convincing enough for everyone.It was a myth that could have happened but it didn't coz nobody had any proof as to why it could happen-only theories and that don't prove nuthing !!!

Answer 3

Just another lie to scare the American people into submission.

Answer 4

The reason that nothing serious happened is that the computer software companies recognized the problem way before 2000.  The bugs were fixed before there was a problem.

Answer 5

because its just a stupid concept that some dumb hippies came up with to scare people and try to get back at the government and they were a bunch of dumb pot smokin hippies. that will never ever happen unless alqaida is involved okay. don't take advice from hippies for future reference

Answer 6

It didn't happen because it was hyped by people who didn't know anything about computers.

Computers are dumb.  They only do what you tell them to do.  No one did or would write code that tells a computer to implode, or a bomb to explode because of a date malfunction.

...And most code in the world was corrected before 2000 hit.  Those that were not changed don't use the date function, so all was well.

It made for a good doomsday ghost story, but nothing more.

Answer 7

Because any critical systems were fixed before the year 2000.

All it was that a lot of computer programs were written which only stored the final two digits of the year which didn't matter when we were in the 1900s but it meant they'd think it was 1900 instead of 2000 when we got to the end of the century.

It's unlikely that it would have caused any nuclear bombs to go off or planes to drop out of the sky but people who didn't understand the problem over-hyped it ridiculously to the point that some people thought the world was going to end. It never was, even if most systems weren't fixed.

Was great for programmers at the time as you could get paid totally inflated wages for fixing the problems.

Answer 8

It was built up to seem like a bigger threat than it was by people trying to cash in on the hysteria.  Selling cobol programming courses and so on.

Answer 9

your a lawyer? arent you glad it DIDNT go bad? it didnt go bad for probably a few reasons..one, it was just something that everyone blew out of proportion... the thing about computers not knowing the difference between 2000 and 1900 was fixed quickly, that is if it ever was a problem...

i was locked up in county jail on the turn of the milenium.. yeah, i worried about it, what could i have done? nothing....

Answer 10

The same reason why 12-21-12 is not going to happen...