Agenda Packets - 1999/02/01 - Laserfiche WebLink

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uw:izs -./...t:_5..—_y/._.L- / t��T /_ t' " FT'I;J YEAR 2000 PROBLEM Call it the Year 2000 problem or the Y2K problem and it sounds like a technical problem;call it the Millennium Bug and it sounds like an end-of-the-world science fiction thriller. Whatever the name,however,the problem is real. Nobody is sure what computers--or for that matter,any of the countless devices and systems controlled by microchips--are going to do at the stroke of midnight when December 31, 1999 rolls over to January 1,2000. Some computers and systems will make the change smoothly;while others may behave erratically or even stop working. Why? During the early days of computing,when processing power and storage capacity were puny com- pared to what we're accustomed to today,programmers and engineers decided to reduce the space needed to store a date by recording only the last two digits of the year: Valentine's Day 1980,for example,was stored as 021480(they also saw no reason to store the slashes between the month,day,and year). When this century ends and the new one begins,however,that will become a problem. Computers won't know the difference between Valentine's day, 1901,and Valentine's Day,2001;they will both be stored as 021401. Traditional mainframe computers,which are dominated by older programming languages--COBOL,FORTRAN, and others--will certainly be affected. These programming languages are where the problem has its roots. But virtually anything and everything that relies on embedded process controllers(microchips) will be affected. The first thing that comes to mind is the personal computer. Many older IBM compatible PCs won't be compliant,but machines sold after 1997 generally are compliant. Macintosh computers don't have a Year 2000 problem,because they store the date as a long ..'_ number based on the number of seconds since January 1,1904. This system handles the 2000 just fine,but apparently has its own problem at 6:28:16 a.m.,February 6,2040 when the total num- ber of seconds since January 1,1904 will be too long a number for the allotted storage space. Microchips also control security elevators and doors,telephone switches,traffic lights, and electric utility substations,as well as small household and office appliances. Industry experts predict that of the 25 billion chips in electronic components,only about 2 percent will fail, because most of these devices lose track of their timing functions. But there's no way to know which 2 percent. In many(perhaps most) cases,the device will just stop working. Elevators will descend to the basement or go into security mode;VCRs will work but you won't be able to program them. The problem is not just one of hardware and chips. Any software that stores and uses dates--spreadsheets, databases,financial management software of all kinds,human resources software,and a host of other programs-- is vulnerable to the Year 2000 problem. By extension,so are all the data files used by those programs. In short,anything electronic that depends on dates or on calculations involving dates is vulnerable. Y2K -1- ®M„D