How the UK coped with the millennium bug 15 years ago.

[atomic_joe2]

In the final months of 1999 concern grew into panic that the millennium bug was going to cause computers to malfunction and potentially endanger everything from tills to power stations. It didn't happen quite like that, but the public safety warnings from the time remain intriguing.

Comments

[jeliza]

Articles like this that don't mention the legions of programmers/etc that spent part of 1998 and most of 1999 making sure to *fix* things so the breakdowns (mostly) didn't happen are irresponsible as heck, imho.

[ceruleanst]

It's my favorite example of how blinkered the deterministic outlook of popular rhetoric is. The focus is always on prediction, centered on the assumption that the primary aim of a prediction is to be proven right. This is why every positive step taken on environmental concerns is going to be undone sooner or later.

[compost75]

Exactly. I worked for several years on ONE big banks system that would emphatically have failed spectacularly. The fact that it worked flawlessly was a testament to my team's work.

[tcpip]

True that. It was a very good time to be a COBOL to C programmer.

[policraticus]

We were saved by the T.P.S. Report.

[bigtitch]

I worked in a UK IT company before Y2K and we spent 1999 testing and installing upgrades to our software to all our customers before the new millennium. If the press over-reported the situation, it didn't mean that a LOT of hard work went in to making sure that nothing went wrong.

[squeeful]

The world didn't end because thousands of people put in thousands of hours to make sure a little as possible broke. Thank them that it was anti-climactic.