Y2K: Was it all a hoax?

Year 2000, the world was facing its nearing "death", but now it is 2021, and the world did not die. Why is that? #Year2000 #MillenniumBug #Y2K

Note: Do not google Y2K pictures, you won't find a lot of related stuff...

The year 2000, the presuming start of the new Millennium was a time of worry. People thought the world would die and all apocalyptic things would happen. However, as the clock reached midnight, nothing huge happened. Why is that?

Let's rewind a couple decades:

Century Date Change, when the computer workers woke up to Y2K

In the 1960s came to America, the machines then used 6 digit date code. Instead of writing 10/19/2021, we write 10/19/21. We find it obvious that it is 2021, but a computer could confuse it with 1921, which is impossible.

The reason 6 digit codes were used was to save space and money. Nobody had so much space in the computers (who then looked like rooms) and money to replace so many hard drives. 6 digit codes just saved space and money.

By the 60s, with the IBM 360 computer, could use the normal digit date code with the full year but the people did not want to since the 6 digit dates had backwards compatibility with old 6 digit codes.

If they did change, Y2K wouldn't exist.

Century Date Change, a calendar problem around the coming year 2000 having the chance of being confused by a computer with 1900, the workers at computer manufacturers started to fix the problem. Retired Cobol programmers rushed to fix decades old code and thousands of dollars to push the Century Date Change away.

Y2K, 90s Panic and Apocalypse seeming close.

1990s, a young man sends an email mentioning that a problem with the year 2000, and for the first time Y2K was heard in the world. Out of nowhere, news and media started to wake up to Y2K, people started to think that if by the time the clock hits midnight, the computers go haywire and everything shuts down. No power, no water but also danger in the nuclear department. Everyone could die all of a sudden, and what did the people do to react?

Panic

Panic is the power of reaction, or even overreaction. Power that can fuel business to take care of or even manipulate

What in Y2K was advantageous?

People sold Y2K products, guides, ways to survive, all kinds of crap. As well as make entertainment, like movies and music based on Y2K. Money was made out of all things Y2K. And turn off your computer at midnight was also something you could see in computers... Everyone worried, and money was made out of all things Y2K.

Personal Computers and Y2K

Ok, I have not been mentioning a lot about personal computers and that is actually on purpose! PCs were mostly unaffected by this. 6 Digit Codes never were part of PCs. Most BIOS settings had full digit dates, so did Windows and Mac. Dates after 2000 were just fine when used with PCs. If any program did not accept full digit dates, there always were patches.

Microsoft even made an educating CD for people who needed to understand the Y2K better.

Midnight Struck, was it all a Hoax?

After the clock showed 12:00 AM, time had passed and no machine had turned off. Water was fine, power was working, PCs who were on at midnight worked just fine. And no nuclear meltdown happened, of course.

Only minor problems happened, like a South Korean building losing its heat, a French school showing the year 1900 on their clock, British doctors giving wrong prescriptions, and a guy returning his VHS tape but being greeted by a 90,000$ bill, because he was 100 years late.

People quickly after started to voice out that Y2K was all but a hoax.

They weren't very incorrect, they didn't see much change after midnight. Although, Peter de Jager, a programmer who worked on the Century Date Change problem, quoted:

"Y2K was not a hoax or fake because people saw everything working on 1/1/2000. People tested their systems with 00 dates, and the systems stopped working."

-Peter De Jager, 2010

Let's also mention that the code used in the Century Date Change also helped American policemen investigate terrorists in the 9/11 attacks.

A funny note is that the code in the Pivot system for the Y2K, saw years with 00 and 20 as the year 2000. Last year, this also happened. By the moment midnight stroke at 1/1/20, the computers saw it as 1/1/00, minor problem that just showed up on computer dates but it did make a minor issue that became known as Y2K20.

Conclusion

Y2K was a serious problem when it first came out because it was a true issue that needed fixing but people worried way too much when the panic clearly made no sense. All problems can be fixed and there is no reason for us to worry too much over anything because of we do, too much money will be spent for no reason at all, and then people will claim that it is a hoax when it wasn't. Y2K, let's not relive it.