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Hey, dude this isn't really such a big problem. All of the "new" operating systems such as OS/2 4.0 and Windows NT 4.0 already have fixes for this problem, but I maybe wrong. For the old computers that use DOS / Windows 3.1 or 3.11 or Windows 95 or 97, just set the hardware date to 1990 instead of 2000 and use a TSR to intercept the date requests. If done this way, the file dates maybe wrong, but the TSR(terminate and Stay Resident) program could provide that extra bit that you refered to.
as proposed by: Jeremy Garrett ..[Mar 8, 1997] ..Western Carolina University

Let's make our way into 2000 with a whole newway of computing. Forget compatiblity. Let's get those 300 Mhz processors. 100 mgs of ram systems.Let's make a cool new graphical interface.Let's make the computers all connect via T3 lines.We're going to slow, it's time to change...Eventually you have to give up compatibility..
as proposed by: Anonymous ..[Mar 14, 1997] ..Toronto, Ontario, Canada

I've fiddled with Windows 95 settings a bit, exploring the Year 2000 problem. I'm not much of a programmer, but I changed the date to December, 31st, 1999, and the time to 11:59:50 PM, to see what will happen when it switches to the year 2000. Result? The computer correctly stated January 1st, 2000, when I hovered the mouse of the clock. I'm not sure how the computer reads dates, as I said, I'm not a programmer, but January 1st, 2000 seems answer enough for me.
as proposed by: Daniel-san ..[Mar 15, 1997] ..Pasadena, MD, USA

What kind of software and hardware are being used to tackle this problem
as proposed by: Steve Hurtado ..[Mar 16, 1997] ..Guildford,Surrey,England

Let's send Jean Luke Picard back to the beginning of the 21st Century, and when he discovers that we were unable to solve the problem, then he initiates the Star Date System.
as proposed by: Rags ..[Mar 20, 1997] ..

This isn't my own solution you understand, but a conspirecy therorist friend of mind swears that the following is an excerpt from a taped conversation between Bill Gates and God. BG: "Hello, Hello ?" Receptionist: "Hello, can I help you ?" BG: "God. I want to speak to God" Receptionist: "Hold on a second, I'll put you through" St Peter: "Hello" BG: "Who's that ? Identify yourself" St Peter: "This is St Peter. I'm afraid God is unavailable at the moment. Can I take a messege ?" BG "Unavailable ? Un - a - bloody - vailable ?!? Do you KNOW WHO THIS IS ?" St Peter: "I'm sorry, I don't my son." BG: "!!?!!?!!?!? sehole" St Peter: "I'm afraid God is on vacation for a while. Is there anything I can help you with ?" BG: "Yes there bloody well is. I want to change the year 2000 to 1999a. OK sonny ?" St Peter: "Er, I don't think that's possible" BG: "Look pete, I'll spell it out for you. If you don't change the date, then we are all buggered. Got it ?" St Peter: "Hmmm, yes, I understand the problem but there really isn't much I can do about it. You will have to wait until God returns from his vacation and talk to him about it." BG: "??!?!?!?!?!sehole. When does he get back then ?" St Peter: "Hmm, well, he should be back by next week, give or take a few decades. You know what these Gods are like. Can't get enough of Euro-disney" Sounds like a good idea to me ! Martin Horton.
as proposed by: Martin Horton ..[Mar 24, 1997] ..Cambridge, UK

If you will pardon my french, but it seems to me that a few of your corispondents think that just because they own MAC's or such that will not be afftected by this problem...well their f*cking wrong. Remember folks, just because YOUR system will not be affected by the YR2K, your banking institutions, your credit card services, your insurance services, and quite a few others are still using main-frame based, COBOL language systems. Believe me folks, if I was you I'de be scared. As for the solution that you propose, while it does get to the root of the problem, it is fairly shallow..no offense. Remember that when the folks wrote the code for most of these programs, it was around 10 to 15 years ago. Many of the original copy books, programs, and programers aren't even around any more. In addition to this, many programmers at the time decided to use a fairly large amount of acronyms for date fields. And on top of that there are mutliple links inside most programs, many programs are over 500,000 lines of code...man the nightmare goes on and on when thinking about how to fix this. Sorry I don't have a easy solution...but there ain't one.
as proposed by: Joseph M. Scott ..[Mar 26, 1997] ..Cincinnati, Ohio 45215

Change your life and go to live among the Amish.
as proposed by: Ray Greenfield ..[Apr 7, 1997] ..

get the hell out of here
as proposed by: indranil,hariharan,raju ..[Apr 12, 1997] ..calcutta,india

Just fuck up all the computers!
as proposed by: fgjmvbnm ..[Apr 12, 1997] ..bvnm

Confessions of a COBOL Programmer Y2K - The Millenium Bug - Year 2000 A COBOL Solution After leaving college in '87 (i.e. 1987), I spent several years writing COBOL programs. Almost all of these programs contained "The Millenium Bug". This, as I'm sure you know by now, is the name given to the inherent system restriction caused by using only two digits to represent the year. While I was designing these programs I was aware of this limitation. In fact I remarked on it to my superiors and was told not to worry about it. I was told that if the programs were still around by the year 2000, we certainly wouldn't be, and it would be somebody else's problem. Well, I have moved on and I haven't seen a COBOL program for many years, but since I was partly to blame for creating this problem I must make some contribution to resolving it. As such, let the following be my contribution to the resolution of "The Millenium Bug" i.e. a method for re-designing COBOL programs, so that the minimum of work is required to produce a system which will continue to run well into the 21st century. The huge impact of this "Bug", the pervasiveness of it, and the logistical problems involved in fixing it, have been discussed many times before and I will not repeat that lecture here. However, for the purposes of understanding my solution to this problem, allow me to present the following points. 1) The problem was brought about by the short-sighted initial design of systems. Therefore, it is a core part of the systems concerned and changes made to rectify it are likely to stir up a hornet's nest of unforeseen problems. It is therefore desireable to minimise the changes made. 2) Dates are commonly stored in the following formats : DDMMYY, MMDDYY (USA), YYMMDD (used for sorting), YYDDD (Julian, Sorting) In COBOL, for example in the case of YYMMDD, this would be represented by something like the following : 01 EXAMPLE-RECORD. 02 ER-DATE-YYMMDD. 03 ER-YEAR PIC 99. 03 ER-
as proposed by: Seán Mc Laughlin ..[Apr 15, 1997] ..Dublin, Ireland

All of my CarriageReturn_LineFeeds seem to have disappeared from my solution. Sorry if it's difficult to read.
as proposed by: Seán Mc Laughlin ..[Apr 15, 1997] ..Dublin, Ireland

Right, I am a reasearch student, from Nottingham Trent University and I have been looking into the problems of the Year 2000 for a local health trust. Reading some of these solutions is painful to say the least. The problem is both a hardware and a software problem. This Daniel chap from Pasadena, going on about changing the date in the operating system. Of course the date rolled over from 31/12/1999 to 01/01/2000 becasue the BIOS date and Operating System date are two different things! What you need to do is change the date and time of the BIOS to 23:58 on 31/12/1999 and then turn your computer off for three minutes. Turn your computer back on and now look at the date, you will possibly see the date has set to 1980 or 1900. All Microsoft Operating Systems are Year 2000 compliant from MS-DOS 3.3. Macs don't have a problem. Well the hardware may not, but it does not follow that the software will be O.K. On the P.C side just because the BIOS does not roll over to 01-01-2000 automaticly, it does not mean that it is useless. Most BIOS's (but not all) will actualy store the date 01-01-2000 by setting the date useing the DOS DATE command, and then it will be o.k from this point on. All I have done on the Health Trusts P.C's is write a piece of code that is called from the autoexec.bat file that basicaly says if the BIOS date is less than 1990 then set date to 04-01-2000 (Whic is the first working day). One last point, you should be careful about chanigng the date within windows 95 or NT as you could loose data in electroincs diaries or a beta version of a program could stop working. Any more comments would be appreciated. Peter Moore, Nottingham Trent University, England
as proposed by: Peter Moore ..[May 2, 1997] ..U.K

Sa aking palagay ay kinakailangan ng masusing pag-aaral sa problemang ito. Yung lang masasabi ko salamat sa inyo....
as proposed by: A. F. Rica ..[May 9, 1997] ..Muntinlupa State of Calamity , Africa

I'm not a computer programmer, but to me a simple solution would be to change the way the date is written now, 00, to a three digit number, such as 100.
as proposed by: Dana ..[May 14, 1997] ..

Why not a TSR to add 100 to the Date?
as proposed by: John D. Ostovic ..[May 31, 1997] ..Washington, PA, USA

Those of us who work on mainframes or minis have two main areas of concern - databases and source code. I have developed a tool which scans entire databases and finds dates that are not Y2K compliant and I am working on a source scanner. Download a FREE trial now and get your YEAR2000 conversion of to a start. http://freespace.virgin.net/c.young/y2k.html
as proposed by: Chris Young ..[Jun 3, 1997] ..

Be strategic - Pass the buck We don't know what will happen Project your vision to Jan 2000 when things have gone wrong and work out your response 1. Show the memo you wrote identifying the problem, that passes the problem to the manager 2. If you are the manager, show them you did implement a scheme. The law states you are responsible 'to take reasonable steps' 3. same for directors 4. If you are the consultant who handled the project, increase your professional liability 5. If you are the supplier, create your IT systems solutions into a separate division, so when it goes up the shoot you dont take the company with it 6. Finally, well most systems will cope anyway, and if they don't a change of career is no bad thing
as proposed by: Mike of 'april' ..[Jun 6, 1997] ..bath - UK

My first solution was rather simplistic. I had e-mailed Jess after reading his article to suggest that his age calculation was not done correctly. Actually, he would be -71 (00-71). Age is absolute, but computers are not. Unless the code written for age calculations does use absolute numbers, perhaps a TSR that adds 100 to the age should solve the problem. As for legacy software, an upgrade that re-writes the section of code for age calcs may work. For new, include it now. In word processing programs, the function can still be in mm/dd/yy format. It will not matter. Only in age calcs will the TSR or code change take affect. That's my opinion, I may be wrong. ( Thanks, Dennis Miller.)
as proposed by: John D. Ostovic ..[Jun 8, 1997] ..Washington, PA

I don't understand why we can't just make a simple program that will change the 2 digit year storage into a 4 digit year storage. There has been all this talk about manually changing the code which is billions of lines, but this sounds like the job for a computer.
as proposed by: Bob Even ..[Jun 9, 1997] ..U.A.E.

The solution to the problem will obviosly be very complex and probably take many more years than we have. This sounds very simple and probably has already been considered but if we run out of time and it is 11:59 Dec 31, 1999, why don't we reset the time back to 1980 and buy us some time. Some things will be lost but it would be better than doing nothing
as proposed by: Chris Peters ..[Jun 9, 1997] ..Russia

Create a digital micro-chip with the added information and provide it to all necessary users. The company that creates this chip will be the company that saved the world as it exists and beyond.
as proposed by: Diane Reed ..[Jun 16, 1997] ..Powell, Ohio USA

Most people are ignorant about y2k. They don't know what is going to happen because important data will be lost, forever, and there will also be a lot of confusion in which most probably a lot of people are going to be hurt, mentally and physically. In richer countries these people will be all kinds of people, rich , middle class, and poor people. In middle income countries, rich, middle income and poor people will be affected. In poor countries rich and middle income people will be affected. Only the poorest of the poorest of the poor countries will not be affected, because they are very far off from this great evil of computing which is bound to occur.(they will have the good privilige of not having any contact in name or number with any computer system. But they also will be effected because they will be living on earth, which will probably just low up for all I know! believe me, I don't know much, and this is not a threat of any kind. It is for the good of mankind, this message) Of course the Internet is going to crash, and so are all of the world's military forces(including nuclear devices,chenical weapons, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, if they are not disabled now and fixed after the year 2000.) I expect a lot of chaos and disorder. Do you? If the data or information or transactions or whatever are not on paper(telling exactly when it happened) and the papers are used to tell when the things occurred then there will be a lot of confusion for everyone. My solution is only one solution: it is a paper/microfiche solution. it is not a very good solution because most of it will be destroyed when things start to get bad! The time at which the papers are printed should also be dated. Disks or CDs, computer systems should not be used for recording this data, since they all have the y2k problem. My solution is because of time constraints, though proably my solution will probably take more time unless more people are employed in recording old data. People should slow
as proposed by: hassa arif yaqub ..[Jun 18, 1997] ..Stillwater, Oklahoma, U.S.A. (Oklahoma State University)

I have developed a COBOL subroutine which will window any year you send to it and return it in with 2 century digits attached. For instance, pass it the date 021271 and receive 02121971. You may pass it up to five dates in one of six different formats. If anyone is interested or would like to ask questions, please contact at leatj@zeus.dsu.edu.
as proposed by: Jeff Leat ..[Jun 20, 1997] ..Sioux Falls, SD USA

Luckily, the company I'm working for right now will have little/no problem with the Y2K problem. We've been storing dates in a horlog format. Horlog is kinda like a Julian date...except it never resets itself. It doesn't record the year when it puts down a date. Some genius invented this system during the infancy of IT. So, if anyone is interested...today is day 57154. Mathmatical computations involving these times just looks to see how many days have passed. So when 2K hits, it'll just roll right along to the next horlog day. Doesn't do a whole lot of good to help people fix their 'bug', but is just a notice that not all companies will experience this problem.
as proposed by: Chris Nielsen ..[Jun 26, 1997] ..Omaha, NE

YEAR 2000 ASSESSMENT FOR PC SIDE Below is my year 2000 project on all PC softwares in my company. I created all testing procedures and hope that these informations would be useful to someone in the world. Please EMail me of new testing procedures and solutions if I missed in my project. It would be greatly appreciated. C = Compliant NC = Non Compliant TR = Test Required · Testing procedures: 1. Create a table with a Date field. Set the value of the Date field to 12/31/99. Edit the Date field and change it to 1/1/2000 to see if the application saves the Date value correctly. 2. Create a table with a Date field. Set the value of the Date field to 2/28/2000. Edit the Date field and change it to 2/29/2000 to see if the application saves the Date value correctly. 3. Test to make sure that 1/1/00 is later than 12/31/99 4. Test to make sure that the system calculates 1/1/2000 as Saturday 5. Add 1 day programmatically to 12/31/99 to make sure that the new Date is saved as 1/1/2000. Subtract 1 day programmatically from 1/1/2000 to make sure that the Date is saved as 12/31/99. Do the same thing for 1 week, 6 months, 1 year and longer. 6. Add 1 day programmatically to 2/28/2000 to make sure that the new Date is saved as 2/29/2000. Subtract 1 day programmatically from 3/1/2000 to make sure that the Date is saved as 2/29/2000. 7. Use Date functions to subtract 12/31/99 from 1/1/2000 to make sure that the result is 1. Do the same thing for 1 week, 6 months, 1 year and longer. 8. Use Date functions to subtract 2/29/2000 from 3/1/2000 to make sure that the result is 1. Do the same thing for 1 week, 6 months, 1 year and longer. 9. Test to make sure that a Date of 9/9/99 is not used for any special occasions. 10. Check that all reports display 1/1/00 as 1/1/2000, not 1/1/00. 11. When the extra space 20 is inserted in a report, Make sure line wrapping doesn t make a mess of it. 12. Change the System Date to Long Date Display Format which shows 4 digit years in the operating environment. Run all applications to ensure that it behaves as expected. 13. Check source code where it deals with Date in the following ways: Hard coded 19 in 4-digit year field, Short Date, Long Date, Date used for calculation, fancy Date and so on... You might find some surprises there. 14. Change the System Date to 1/1/2000 in Win 3.1, Win 3.11 for WorkGroup, Win 95, Win NT, OS 2 and all operating system running in the company. Open a project, make some changes to the project and save the project. The operating system should recognizes 1/1/00 as 1/1/2000 in the Short Date Display Format. 15. Change the System Date to 12/31/99 and change the System Time to 22:00. go and get a nice cool drink and make sure that you return to your computer before the 2 minutes expires. Who know what will happen? 16. Test all applications to ensure that you are able to issue a cheque on 1/1/2000 and later. Some old applications revert the Date from 1/1/2000 to 1/4/1980. 17. Make sure that all applications crossing the year boundary calculating the difference between the two dates correctly. 18. When PC systems communicate with Mainframe systems, make sure that the Date is appropriately formatted for both end to work. 19. Install all PC softwares on a workstation with a System Date set to 1/1/2000 to ensure that they can be successfully installed. 20. Can you change the default Short Display Date Format to Long Display Date Format inside the application? 21. Require input of 4 Digit Year 22. Display 4 Digit Year on reports · DBXL - Dbase V? - Dbase database V? · C1, C2, NC3, NC4, NC5, NC6, NC7, NC8, C9, C10, C11, NC12, NC13, NC14, C19, NC20, NC21 Problems encountered during testing: 1. When the Date is set to Long Date Display Format in Win 95, Paradox 5 and Access 2 treat date field 1/1/00 as 1/1/1900. 2. Fix source code to accomodate Long Date Displ t input Date in 4 digit mode What will you do with each application · Renovate: The application requires Year 2000 renovation. · Retire: Dump the application in the junk yard. · Rehost: The application requires conversion to a Year 2000 programming language, Year 2000 database management system, or Year 2000 platform. · Replace: Replace the application with a software package or other in-house application. · Redevelop: Redevelop or rewrite the application. · Outsource: Let an outsourcing company takes care of the application. · Retain: The application is retained, as is, with no change.
as proposed by: Thanh Quach ..[Jul 9, 1997] ..

Here's kind of an idiotic one. Starting on 1/1/2000, add 12 to the month number. So 1/1/2000 would be 13/1/00. This will only work for files that keep the month in the date as 2 digits (2 separate bytes per digit) or use more than 4 bits for the month field (more than 16 possible combinations) though. Otherwise, it should be pretty easy to work and wouldn't require any modification of existing data. Just adjust the software to count the century as being the 21st one if the month number exceeds 12. Neither would this require any adjustment for the timer. Just recompile the progs on new year's eve and make the thing add 12 to every month number. Either that, or just stop it from checking the month, and allow the user to input seemingly insane numbers, which, in reality, signify the coming of a new era. :]
as proposed by: Paul Berestetskiy ..[Jul 10, 1997] ..

solution to what? There is no problem! We are people! we have brains! we will figure out whats wrong a few weeks into the millennium! WE ARE NOT STUPID
as proposed by: Lindsei ..[Jul 13, 1997] ..

KILL EVERYONE GET HIGH AND DRUNK AND KILL YOUR PC BY GIVING IT A DRINK.!!!!!
as proposed by: Russ Empire ..[Jul 15, 1997] ..Buffo, Idaho USA

Okay..we're dead...fine...GOOD !
as proposed by: Michael Warren ..[Jul 18, 1997] ..NY, NY

We did it before and we will do it again!!!!!!
as proposed by: Danielle E. Ferrara ..[Jul 26, 1997] ..Scotts Valley, CA 95066

Le PC, la machine la plus impersonnelle qui puisse exister malgré les efforts de Microsoft, vient de signer une fois de plus son ordre de repliement face au discret MacIntosh. La solution, I don't it know, mais tout ce que je peux dire c'est que si les rôles étaient inversés, à cet instant, il n'y aurait plus de problème puisque d'ici l'an 2000 avec le bug horloge,on retrouvera dans de l'ambre microsoft . Notre bien aimé BillGates sortira son dernier grand film "Informatique Jurrassic park"
as proposed by: Mib ..[Aug 2, 1997] ..Berry-Bouy, Cher, France

Ignore it. The year 2000 comes, and all the banks get messed up. Good! Maybe we'll become a worldwide community that shares it resources! Ahhh...
as proposed by: Greg Golds ..[Aug 4, 1997] ..

Tell the corporations to get updated software that has the 2000 capabilities. Thousands of dollars is nothing if one is considering the money lost if nothing is fixed.
as proposed by: eric hon ..[Aug 6, 1997] ..cali

If all computers were down. There's no problem...Therefore...no solution. Get it !!
as proposed by: Bobby ..[Aug 17, 1997] ..New York, New York, USA

This isn't a solution but it is more info. For those who use Win95, you may have tried to put 12/31/99 11:59.50 in and 10 secs latter the date said 2000. It may seem the Y2K thing is fixed on your PC. It actually isn't. Try this, put in 12/31/19 11:59.50pm. Your date should say Dec 31, 2019. but watch 10 secs latter. It will say 1/1/1920 12:01.10am. That is called windowing. Any date put in using a year 19 or less will be in 2000s and 20 up will by in 1900s. That Microsofts way of delaying the inevitable.
as proposed by: Anon ..[Aug 26, 1997] ..

The above info may not be correct with your machine. But it does work with MS Excel.
as proposed by: Anon ..[Aug 26, 1997] ..

well, why not create a search program in COBOL, or where ever the problem is, and when the date field is found, change it and move on?!? this may well be an ignorant solution but please e-mail me and tell me why...
as proposed by: lindsay rattray ..[Sep 2, 1997] ..melbourne, vic, oz

why not make a new program to fix the problem
as proposed by: jeff williams ..[Sep 3, 1997] ..austin IN. usa

REWRITE THESE progmam problems before they write us out.
as proposed by: Anominous Person ..[Sep 6, 1997] ..

The Y2k problem both frightens and excites me. What happens when the machines stop working? I hate to come off as a Luddite, but maybe it's time that we weaned ourselves from machines. Perhaps a brief respite is in order while we work on regaining our humanity.
as proposed by: Chris Lott ..[Sep 9, 1997] ..Valencia, CA United States

Hey guys, if this is such a big problem don't you think more company's and goverment agences would be concerned? Besides if it was that hard to fix, I bet programers all over the world would be trying to find a fix so that he could be a millionaire
as proposed by: Brad ..[Sep 18, 1997] ..El Cajon, Ca, 92019

Let's get a few things straight. First of all the "millenium bug" will be everyone's problem. Period. If you think that you'll be okay because your some computers won't fail, you're missing the whole point. If you think you're okay because someone else isn't worried, you're wrong. Look at the reason we're talking about this at all. The people (programmers) who built this tenuous system didn't have the foresight to program for the year 2000. Did they think it wouldn't come after 1999? No. They left that problem for us. We can't leave the problem for someone else anymore. We rely on computers to manage everything and they're depending on each other. A single error or system crash can affect computers anywhere in the world. If you multiply that one error by the astronomical number of programs that we use, and combine the effects of all the errors and crashes, AND HAVE THEM ALL OCCUR AT ONCE , well, you would need a psychic to predict what will really happen. We're also talking about the spin off effects of crashes, slowdowns and the lack of confidence that will follow in the wake of this crisis. Stock markets and countries only exist because we created them. They're uniquely ours. They exist because we have CONFIDENCE in our business and societies. The DOW can plummet 300 points based on what one guy says. (i.e. Federal Reserve) We can limit the effects of the millenium bug by thinking ahead, working on the programming problem and resisting the urge to panic. It's time we woke up before this gets out of hand. - Derek Brookes
as proposed by: Derek Brookes ..[Sep 20, 1997] ..Winnipeg Manitoba Canada

let them blow up
as proposed by: m ..[Sep 22, 1997] ..

so what if the computers do blow up or mess up completely. I'm not worried i have a brain and i'll still have a job and a place to live. no problem therefore no solution. Just leave them be and see what happens it cant be that bad anyway somebody should be able to fix them thats what they're gettin paid for init. MAD FOR IT !!!!
as proposed by: child ..[Sep 24, 1997] ..