FREE ESSAY ON YEAR 2000 COMPUTER PROBLEM (Y2K BUG)

YEAR 2000 COMPUTER PROBLEM (Y2K BUG)

Less than two years until the year 2000. Two seemingly small 
digits may turn January 1, 2000 from a worldwide celebration into a 
universal nightmare. With computers mistaking the year 2000 for 1900, 
virtually all businesses that use dates will be affected. Not only 
will the companies be affected, but they are paying millions upon 
millions of dollars in order for computers to recognize the difference 
between the years 2000 and 1900. The year 2000 computer bug is a huge 
problem that our world must face.
In order to explain how to solve the millennium bug, it is a 
good idea to be informed about exactly what the year 2000 problem is. 
The year 2000 industry expert, Peter de Jager, described the problem 
quite well. We programmed computers to store the date in the 
following format: dd/mm/yy. This only allows 2 digits for the year. 
January 1, 2000 would be stored as 01/01/00. But the computer will 
interpret this as January 1, 1900- not 2000 (de Jager 1). The '19' is 
hard-coded into computer hardware and software. Since there are only 
2 physical spaces for the year in this date format, after '99', the 
only logical choice is to reset the number to '00'.
The year 2000 problem is unlike any other problem in modern 
history for several reasons. William Adams points out some of the most 
important ones. Time is running out- the Year 2000 is inevitable! The 
problem will occur simultaneously worldwide, time zones withstanding. 
It affects all languages and platforms, hardware & software. The 
demand for solutions will exceed the supply. Survivors will survive 
big, losers will lose big. There is no 'silver bullet' that is going 
to fix things (Adams 2). It is too big and too overwhelming even for 
[Bill Gates and] Microsoft (Widder 3). Separate, any one of these 
points makes Y2K, a common abbreviation for the year 2000 problem, an 
addition to the obstacle. Combined, they form what seems more like a
hideous monster than an insignificant bug. 
The impact of Y2K on society is enormous, bringing the largest 
companies in the world to their knees, pleading for a fix at nearly 
any cost. The modern world has come to depend on information as much 
as it has on electricity and running water. Fixing the problem is 
difficult because there are [less than] two years left to correct 40 
years of behavior (de Jager 1). Alan Greenspan has warned that being 
99 percent ready isn't enough (Widder 2). Chief Economist Edward 
Yardeni has said that the chances for a worldwide recession to occur 
because of Y2K are at 40% (Widder 3). Senator Bob Benett (Republican,
Utah) made a good analogy about the potential of the problem. In the 
1970's, oil was the energy that ran our world economy. Today it runs 
on the energy of information. He later said, To cripple the 
technological flow of information throughout the world is to bring it 
to a virtual standstill (Widder 3).
The potential of the problem in everyday life is alarming. 
Imagine making a loan payment in 1999 for a bill that is due in 2000.
The company's computers could interpret the '00' as 1900 and you would 
then be charged with 99 years of late fees (Moffitt & Sandler 48). If 
the year 2000 problem isn't solved, there could be no air traffic, 
traffic lights, no lights in your company, companies could not produce 
goods, no goods delivered to the stores, stores could not send you 
bills, you could not send bills to anyone else. Business [could] come 
to a halt (de Jager 1).
The costs of fixing Y2K are staggering. The Gartner Group 
estimates that costs per line of code to be between $1.50 and $2.00 
(Conner 1). It is not uncommon for a single company to have 
100,000,000 lines of code (de Jager 6). Capers Jones, an expert who 
has studied software costs for over ten years, estimates total 
worldwide costs to be $1,635,000,000,000 (One-trillion, 635 billion 
dollars) (Jones 58). To put this number into perspective, if five 
people were to spend $100 for every second of every day, 24 hours a 
day, 365 days a year, it would take them about 100 years to finish the 
task!
The year 2000 problem is not only limited to what happens with 
computers between December 31, 1999 and January 1, 2000. There are 
several other important dates that are a factor. Last October was 
considered the last point where a large company could start fixing the 
problem with any hopes to finish before the deadline (DBA 1). Also, 
all fixes should be done by January 1, 1999. There are two major 
reasons for having the fixes done a year early. The first is that 
there are many special dates during 1999 that mean special things. 
For example, September 9, 1999 (09/09/99) has been commonly used as 
the expiration date for references and data that have no expiration 
date (Reid 6). The computer required that a date must be entered in, 
and in many cases, 9/9/99 was it. Also, it has been established that 
an entire year's cycle of events should be used to test all of the 
modifications that have been made to a system. Also, one should be 
sure to test to see which day of the week is 01/01/00. January 1, 1900 
was a Monday, but January 1, 2000 will be a Saturday. Other possible 
failure dates: 1/10/2000 (1st 9 character date), 2/29/2000 (Leap day- 
the year 2000 is a leap year), 10/10/2000 (1st 10 character date), and
12-31-2000 (Day 366 of the year 2000) (Martin 15) (GTE Appendix A).
With the millennium bug coming closer and closer to destroying 
the crops of the world's information every day, experts from around 
the globe have discovered several ways to deal with or exterminate 
this menace. Five major solutions to the problem will now be 
discussed.
The most straightforward approach to solving Y2K is to simply 
change the 2-digit date fields to 4-digit ones. This is considered to 
be the only complete solution to the problem, giving businesses a 
seemingly endless range of dates for the future. This approach also 
can make it much easier for the company to reformat the display 
screens with a hard-coded format present (IBM 5.2).
Unfortunately, expanding the date field from 2 to 4 digits has 
several downsides to it. The most obvious one is that in order to
convert the dates, every program and database that references to date 
data will have to be modified. These modifications are mostly manual 
labor- not an automatic process. Also, this requires display screens 
to be reformatted manually, as well as increasing record lengths in 
databases (IBM 5.2).
Another common method for swatting the millennium bug involves 
what is termed date logic, or windowing techniques. This procedure 
involves having a separate program to determine which millennium 
certain dates are in. For example, the program could determine that if 
the year ends in numbers between 00 and 20, the date is in the second 
millennium. If the year ends in 21 to 99, the date is in the first 
millennium. This technique avoids some of the massive changes and 
coordination associated with
the expansion approach (Martin 5).
Date logic routines also have some downsides to them. The most 
important one is that the time window can never be more than 100 
years, and the length of the time window cannot change in the future. 
Also, system performance may slow down with this extra step for each 
date to be processed. On top of that, all of the assumptions and logic 
must be the same for all of the programs that will use it (IBM 5.7). 
If and only if all three of these downsides to windowing techniques 
are able to be overcome, should a business consider this solution.
Another way of getting around 2-digit dates involves a bridge 
program. This type of solution is used to convert data from one
record format to another. This allows a system to convert 2-digit to 
4-digit dates as they are needed. This also allows a business to have 
very little down time for year 2000 renovations. Instead of converting 
all of the data at one time, it is instead converted gradually. Also, 
this technique is very cost effective and fairly easy to do (Moffitt & 
Sandler 5.8). Be aware that a bridge program has the potential to ruin 
a computer system. By removing the bridge before all data has been 
converted, 2-digit dates may become mixed with 4-digit dates, creating 
a larger problem than in the beginning.
Replacing the systems is probably the most straightforward 
method of solving Y2K. By simply discarding old, non-compliant systems 
and purchasing new systems that are year 2000 ready, a business can 
eliminate the year 2000 problem altogether (Martin 6). This avoids the 
hassle of coming up with solutions to the problem, but presents the 
difficulties of starting from scratch. This solution should be 
considered if a company's systems are too costly to fix, or if there 
are not very many systems that need to be fixed. Another idea that 
incorporates the replacement idea is for one company to merge with or 
buy another company that has Y2K compliant systems. Then, the old 
systems can be retired (Martin 6).
The last alternative that will be discussed is to do nothing to 
current computer systems that a business may use. This is not the
same as ignoring the millennium bug and hoping that it will go away. 
Instead, it involves analyzing exactly what will happen to a company's 
computer systems and determining that the effect it will have is 
either none or very little (Martin 6). If this would be the case, and 
employees could work around any damages that may be caused, this 
selection could work.
Carrying out a solution in any business involves careful 
planning in order to be successful. Each of the four steps- awareness,
planning, implementation, and testing- are crucial for a company to 
successfully get beyond the year 2000.
Though the shortest step, the awareness step can be considered 
to be the most important step. This involves a detailed description of 
the problem to CEO's and the other decision makers for the company. 
Also, the management must be informed of the impact that is likely to 
occur if Y2K is not solved. Without successfully informing the company 
executives of the millennium bug, there is no hope of getting funding 
appropriated and fixes underway (Conner 2).
The preparation and planning phase involves finding all 
applications that use dates and choosing the right combination of
solutions to result in a successful endeavor. Also, a business must 
consider any dependencies on outside systems- other companies, for 
example. In addition to this, a priority schedule should be created, 
to determine which systems are absolutely necessary to the operation 
of the business, and to fix them in accordance to their importance 
(Conner 2). A standard date interface should be agreed upon both 
within the company and with all other companies which are relied on. 
Also, the first estimate of how costly and how prolonged the fixes 
should be done (Conner 2).
The implementation phase is probably the most tedious phase of 
year 2000 compliance. This involves taking proposed solutions and 
incorporating them into a business' computer systems. Depending on 
which solutions are chosen, and how the solutions affect everyday 
business, a company's commerce could be crippled due to the need for 
various systems to be down at all times (Moffitt & Sandler 66).
Testing the solutions may be seen as an unimportant phase in the 
conversion process. The rewards seem few, and the costs of are high. 
However, testing solutions is the only way to ensure that a business 
will flow smoothly into the 21st century. This procedure involves 
making sample databases and records to verify that the fixes were made 
correctly, and that all systems work correctly. During this phase, a 
few glitches will most likely be found, and correcting these will be 
relatively easy. There are two common approaches to testing the 
solutions. The first involves making sure the systems work correctly 
in the 20th century, testing the computers for the 21st century, and 
then putting the systems back into everyday use. An advantage of this
method is that all of the tests are done at the same times, allowing 
quicker feedback. The downside is that the amount of down time will be 
fairly high. The other approach is the same as the first, except 
switching the second and third items. The systems are first put back 
into production, and then they are tested for year 2000 compliance 
while they are ensuring the flow of business at the same time. The 
advantage of this method is that down time is much shorter. However, 
getting results will take a longer time (Pollner 2-3). 
As the year 2000 comes closer and closer, companies are losing 
precious time in order to swat the millennium bug. The deadline is 
fixed. The price of survival is high and the only reward is the hope 
of continuing to operate in the worlds of commerce and industry. 
Businesses that continue into the next millennium will enjoy the 
happiness of existence. Companies that fail to act now will probably 
crumble under their own weight. The alternative to addressing the 
year 2000 will be going out of business (Moffitt & Sandler 3).