REPORT: Y2K-TOP10 RUN DATE: 09/23/99 PAGE: 0001
PROGRAMMER: S. BENSON HARTFORD, CONN.
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Y2K:
THE TOP 10 THINGS THAT WILL
HAPPEN AT MIDNIGHT
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DAYS REMAINING UNTIL 01/01/00
100
(as of this update)
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My name is Steve Benson. I've been writing COBOL since 1974, and for the last two and a half years I've done almost nothing but hunt down two-digit years in about 1.8 million lines of policy and claims code at an insurance company here in Hartford. I dream in PIC 99. My wife Kathleen says I've started saying "nineteen-oh-oh" in my sleep.
Everybody keeps asking me what's going to happen at midnight on New Year's Eve. So, from the man in the trenches, here's my official forecast.
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10. Every VCR in America will start flashing 12:00. Nobody will be able to tell the difference.
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9. Your 1987 microwave will decide it's 1900 and refuse to heat anything that hasn't been invented yet. So, oatmeal.
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8. The library will charge you a 99-year late fee on the book you returned on New Year's Day.
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7. Your grandmother, who turns 105 in March, will get a letter from the school district reminding her it's time to sign up for kindergarten.
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6. Somebody in accounting will finally ask what the "19" printed on all those old forms was for.
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5. The ball will drop in Times Square, and every COBOL programmer in the country will hold his breath at the same time. The resulting drop in air pressure will be felt as far away as Ohio.
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4. Your bank will try to pay you a hundred years of interest on your savings account. Don't get excited. They'll catch it by breakfast.
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3. Your brother-in-law with the generator, the 500-gallon water tank and the basement full of canned beans will be very, very disappointed.
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2. The coffee maker, which has a clock in it, will go right on making coffee, which is the only thing that really matters.
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1. Not much. The sun will come up, the lights will stay on, and a whole lot of tired programmers will finally get to sleep in. That was the point of all this.
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*** SERIOUSLY, FOLKS ***
What's the bug? Back when I started, computer memory and disk space cost a fortune, so we stored years as two digits: 74, not 1974. It saved room, and nobody imagined the programs would still be running in the year 2000. Well, they are. When the year goes from 99 to 00, a program that isn't fixed may think it's 1900. Then it figures ages wrong, due dates wrong, interest wrong, and it may sort the new year's records before the old ones.
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Dates we've been watching:
- July 1, 1999: Most states started their 2000 fiscal year. The sky stayed put.
- August 21-22, 1999: The GPS satellite system's week counter rolled back to zero. Older receivers had to be updated, and the ones that were, did fine.
- September 9, 1999: Some old programs used 9999 to mean "end of file" or "no expiration," so 9/9/99 made people nervous. At our office we held our breath at 8 a.m. and then went and got doughnuts.
- January 1, 2000: The big one.
- February 29, 2000: Don't forget this one. Years ending in 00 usually aren't leap years, unless they divide evenly by 400, and 2000 does. So 2000 IS a leap year, and some programs got that wrong too.
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What I'm doing at home: Kathleen and I are doing what the Red Cross suggests, which is about what you'd do for a bad winter storm: a few days of food and water, flashlights, batteries, and a full tank of gas. I'm also keeping paper copies of our bank and mortgage statements from the end of the year. That's it. I'm not pulling our money out of the bank. It's a lot safer there than in a coffee can in the backyard.
Where I'll be at midnight: At the office, with my team leader Wanda Chavis, Greg Rounds from the next cubicle over, about forty other people, a pot of coffee, and a telephone. The company is buying the pizza. If you call our claims line at 12:01 a.m. and somebody answers, it'll probably be me. Be nice.
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RECORDS READ (VISITORS):
    
(six digits, so this counter is good until visitor 999,999. I checked.)
Questions, jokes and #11 suggestions to
[email protected]
Last updated: Thursday, September 23, 1999
*** END OF REPORT ***
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