In 1999, whispers turned to talk, turned to shouts, turned to panic that at the stroke of midnight 2000, most every computer on Earth would reset itself to the year 1901 and turn of the lights of the First World.
The Millennium Bug was an unplanned disaster in the making, fueled by the temerity of early programmers foolishly building in 2-digit year designations next to the 2-digit month and date. Remember how it unfolded? First, a lot of tech companies made a lot of money by combing through mainframes and laptops and reprogramming them to recognize four-digit year numbers, instead. And then, at the stroke of midnight 2001, the trillion or so other processors, from car radios to toaster ovens, looked left, looked right, and then muttered a collective “whatever” and continued to burn the edges of that artisanal bread that was going stale on the kitchen counter.
Much ado, indeed. Fast forward to today, and we’re a society that now has an 8-digit date standard. Yay, us! Look at how forward-thinking we are. No one’s gonna catch us with pants around ankles on THAT one again. Last month, the fam left on vacation and stopped the paper for a week. The two-minute phone-automated vacation stop process went like this: “Please enter the month, day and 4-digit year you want your paper delivery suspended, then press #. Now enter the month, day and 4-digit year you want your paper to begin delivery again and press #.”
Wait, you want to know the 4-digit YEAR I want to take the vacation I’m calling you about stopping my paper for? And then the 4-digit YEAR I want it resumed? How about 1856 and 1922? How does that grab ya, grandma? What idiocy. But wait: We’re Protected! Against the Twenty-SECOND Millennial Bug coming in 87 years! Yep, when 2101 rolls around, ain’t no notion of the wrong century gonna confuse THIS machine – It gonna KNOW.
You’re welcome, great, great grandson. Breathe easy.
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