My brother was born January 2, 2000 and the doctors and nurses were in a huge fuckstorm because the computers didn't malfunction or shut down or whatever like they were supposed to and my mom was freaking out because she didn't want to have her baby when all the computers were down
Anyway, nothing went wrong and my brother was born at 3:28 am the day after Y2K. My dad still finds it hilarious
There was a huge panic leading up to 2000 that all computers would malfunction and stop working because they were shifting from the 1900s to 2000s or some nonsense. We are talking end of the world, set up a bunker and stockpile water and guns panic. It was totally media driven
O_O jesus. don't know how I've never heard of that.Thanks for explaining
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Edited 8 years ago
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· 8 years ago
The technical explanation goes something like this (simplified):
Computers (and similar electronics) have a 'date' set on them, a clock if you will. This date, of course, is stored in memory. The problem? Before the 2k panic, the place where the date was stored was kinda small. Meaning that when that number reached the year 2000, the date would 'go around' and start from 0, which means that the computer would believe that it's the 1st of January... In 1970.
This wouldn't be much of a problem for most electronics, but some automated processes (factories, power plants..) depend on the date, and those would fuck up real good.
But engineers knew this way ahead of time. They simply amplified that memory years before 2k, and boom, problem solved.
I remember my brother worked for Aol at the time and people called daily asking if Aol be able to work at new years. He also had a gf in Australia and on new years her time he asked her if the world ended. lol
Because of eurocentrism I kinda always thought New Year starts in 0 Greenwich England. So Australia goes first? But what about Iran or Venezuela or whatever country that had its own time zone ?or Islam calendar countries or Ethiopia that are stranded in the year 1276? It's not that they have wall street or something, but,were they our last hope? OMG I just remembered, it was actually a bit scary. And we didn't even depend that much on technology. Generation 2k will think we're messing up with them and inventing this stuff, but no. We actually missed all the hype about the coming of the new millennium because of y2k fear (not a small thing, most of the world missed last one cause they "didn't believe in our Lord and savior timezone"so this was our first one,although I heard 999-1000th was much worse being that 999 is backwards 666), but they somehow convinced us that actually 2001 marks 1st year.
Anyway, nothing went wrong and my brother was born at 3:28 am the day after Y2K. My dad still finds it hilarious
(No I actually don't remember 2000)
Engineers had the problem fixed years before 2k. But they just HAD to scare everyone.
http://www.inthe90s.com/generated/terms.shtml
Computers (and similar electronics) have a 'date' set on them, a clock if you will. This date, of course, is stored in memory. The problem? Before the 2k panic, the place where the date was stored was kinda small. Meaning that when that number reached the year 2000, the date would 'go around' and start from 0, which means that the computer would believe that it's the 1st of January... In 1970.
This wouldn't be much of a problem for most electronics, but some automated processes (factories, power plants..) depend on the date, and those would fuck up real good.
But engineers knew this way ahead of time. They simply amplified that memory years before 2k, and boom, problem solved.