Y2K Bug :: essays research papers fc

Computers have become the backbone of the world today. Is there a time bomb slowly ticking down inside of the computers that run everything from your laundry machine to Wall Street? "The year 2000 bug is a flaw in the programming of embedded chips in most electronic devices"(Outsmarting 2). These chips only calculate the date in the ending 2 digits of the year. For instance, the date 1-1-1999 in the computer comes out 1-1-99. "When the year 2000 comes around, the computers will think that it is the year 1900"(2). Any program or system that relies on dates to perform certain functions, such as calculating ages, time periods, or payrolls is at risk of crashing on the stroke of midnight. Programmers in the 1970's were saving a lot of space in programming by only using the last 2 digits of the year. They had no insight into the problem they were creating by cutting this programming corner. The justification for cutting this corner was two fold. First, think of all of the coding and coding time they saved if the date is calculated over 1 million times in a single computation. Second, in those early years, disk storage space was at a premium and severely limited by today's standards. It was important to make the best available use of storage space. For this reason that they entered only the last 2 digits of the year in the old programming. Because only date sensitive programming is at risk, however if or when the Y2K bug hits, the damage will be minimal at most. For those people who plan to move to the country and sell all of their possessions in order to get away from the effect, do not leave just yet. The year 2000 bug will not be the end of the world. Many think that they will start a rural community and it will be their little Garden of Eden. If the year 2000 bug strikes, it will strike everything everywhere, even in rural Montana. The problems will be universal. People believe that they can rely on insurance to cover their assets are facing another problem created by the year 2000 bug. Insurance companies are calling all of their current clients informing them that their coverage does not include losses due to the year 2000 bug. However, lawyers and law firms are gearing up for what they believe will be a windfall, based on millennium bug claims