TABLE OF CONTENTS The New York Times Abstract:
Every major computer company is gearing up to cope with any problems that emerge as dates flip over to 2000 in millions of machines at midnight first in Asia, then Europe, then the Americas; but IBM and Microsoft probably have the most at stake in terms of reputation, and potential liability; they have highest profile on issue, though for very different reasons; IBM introduced computing to corporations and governments in 1960's, and origins of Year 2000 problem storage-saving convention of dropping first two numbers in dates of years date back to mainframe era; and an estimated 70 percent of world's business data still resides on mainframe computers, most of them IBM machines; as dominant technology company of personal computer era, Microsoft is lightning rod for concern about Year 2000 problem partly because its Windows desktop is face of computing to most users. (Lohr, 1999)
The millennium bug, also referred to as the year 2000 or Y2K problem, resulted from computer programming practices dating back to around 1960. When programmers used dates, they shortened years to a two-digit form to save memory space. Although the cost of memory dropped substantially over the years, the convention of using the two-digit format (i.e., "60," rather than 1960) did not change until recently.
The rollover problem occurs when a computer program attempts to read the date "00," which could mean 1900 or 2000. If the year is read as "1900," unpredictable computer...
