WEBVTT - The Y2K Bug Was (And Is) a Real Problem 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:15.040 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:18.520 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio, 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:23.040 and I love all things tech. And if you are 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:26.640 in your early twenties or you are younger than that, 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:30.240 you missed out on a pretty big deal in tech. 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:34.639 And that's the Y two K problem. So Y two 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:38.760 K stands for the year two thousand and by the way, 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:42.960 there's somewhat of a delicious irony at work here, because 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:45.000 Y two K is a way for us to shorten 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:48.200 the year two thousand and the Y two K problem 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:51.800 itself stems from our tendency to shorten stuff for the 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:56.040 sake of convenience, even at the expense of long term results. 0:00:56.360 --> 0:01:00.360 But I digress. By the late ninety nineties was this 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:03.760 growing concern that a great deal of the technology that 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:06.959 we rely upon was just going to fail on the 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:11.240 stroke of midnight. As New Year's Eve n turned to 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:15.280 New Year's Day two thousand, people were worried about everything 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:19.600 from toasters to airplanes that we're all gonna just fail spontaneously, 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:23.080 and clearly the latter would have a much more catastrophic 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:26.080 result than the former. So today I thought I would 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:28.400 really go through what was happening with the HYE two 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:33.319 K problem, how various companies tried to solve it, and 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:37.280 what actually happened at the turn of the millennium. Uh, 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:40.039 that last bit I should probably back off of, since 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:43.080 you know two thousand was actually the end of the millennium. 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:46.160 Two thousand one would have been the beginning of the millennium. 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:49.520 Don't at me. Years don't start at zero, we start 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:53.040 at one. So that means one to one hundred would 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:55.200 be the first century, one oh one to two d 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:59.640 would be the second. That that's my stance. You might disagree. 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:03.320 Let's just agree to disagree and go our separate ways. 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:06.480 But I'll also talk about some related issues in tech, 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:11.160 including how the Y two k problem resurfaced just last year, 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:15.920 because that actually did happen, and there's there's a reason 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:22.400 for it, and that reason is kind of tragically funny. Now, 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:26.320 the easiest thing to do here is to just summarize 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:29.680 the whole issue in this way. The Y two K 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:35.160 problem emerged because of a convergence of several factors. Factor 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:39.680 number one is that computer memory is finite. It has 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:43.920 a limit. Factor number two is that we often build 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:47.680 on top of what came before, meaning the stuff we 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:50.919 create twenty years ago becomes the foundation for the stuff 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:54.440 that we create today. And factor number three is that 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:58.400 sometimes people are lazy. Even if they have the resources 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:01.400 to do more than what was capable in the past, 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:05.600 they may just still do the bare minimum. Alright, And 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:09.399 because the world did not go up in flames when 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:13.640 the calendar switched from two thousand, many people assume that 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:18.000 the whole brew haha was over nothing. But it wasn't nothing. 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:23.280 Companies had spent billions of dollars, hundreds of billions of 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:26.920 dollars to address the issue. They were reconfiguring systems, they 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:30.440 were updating code in order to avoid the problem. Some 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:33.560 of them really just punted the problem a little bit 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:36.800 into the future. And even today, we still occasionally have 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:40.320 instances in which an antiquated system or piece of software 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:44.000 generates an incorrect result because of the y u K bug, 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:46.840 though that sort of thing never really makes the news 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:50.600 these days. After all, a computer producing an error isn't 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:56.240 really newsworthy unless something particularly catastrophic results because of that, right, 0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:59.720 So let's get to the root of it. In the 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:04.520 early days of computer programming for companies and organizations, you know, 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:07.800 when programming was moving out of like the research labs 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:10.720 and the military institutions. So we're talking about like the 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:15.440 nineteen sixties here. Computer memory was a really precious resource. 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:18.040 There just wasn't a whole lot to work with, so 0:04:18.160 --> 0:04:21.919 programmers would try and cut corners wherever possible, trying to 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:26.320 make code in an efficient and effective way. And one 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:29.040 decision a lot of coders made in those early days 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:31.359 was to take a bit of a shortcut when it 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:36.280 came to designated the year. Rather than using a four 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:41.560 digit designation for the year, like you know nineteen sixty one, 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:46.040 programmers often shorten the year down to the last two digits, 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:49.240 and heck, to be fair, we humans, we do this 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:52.960 all the time in casual conversation as well as Brian 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:56.360 Adams songs or for those of you post two thousand 0:04:56.360 --> 0:05:00.719 babies bowling for soup songs. So nineteene seventy five just 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:05.119 becomes seventy five. Computers would just assume that the two 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:09.960 unincluded digits would be one nine, So the two digit 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:14.120 year designation was with the assumption that this year fell 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:18.960 somewhere in the century of nineteen hundred to nineteen Well, 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:21.920 I shouldn't say century, the one hundred year period between 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:25.039 nineteen hundred and nine. No need to go back on 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:28.480 that nineteen o one thing, And at the time that 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:33.200 was okay. There were still decades left in the nineteen hundreds. 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:37.000 While this computer programming was going on. Computer memory was 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:40.719 bound to improve, and surely the future programmers would move 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:43.760 to a four digit designation for the year once they 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:46.640 had the elbow room to do it. Now, to be clear, 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:50.200 this problem was not a new one. In fact, you 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:53.200 could argue that this problem actually dates back to before 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:56.559 there were computers. So let us take a journey all 0:05:56.600 --> 0:06:01.159 the way back to eighteen eighty one. You probably didn't 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:03.440 think the Y two K problem dates all the way 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:08.159 back beyond a century before the pivotal event. Huh. But 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:12.440 eight eight one, or really eighteen eighty was a census 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:15.400 year here in the United States, and the US holds 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:18.839 a census every ten years. Now, the one in eighteen 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:23.200 eighty presented a particular challenge that was evident by eighty one. 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:26.640 So that was that it was going to take a 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:30.720 long time to tabulate all the results of that census 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:35.240 in fact, Ultimately, it took eight years to tabulate the 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:38.440 results of the eighteen eighties census, and this is something 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:42.479 that is to happen every ten years, right. And meanwhile, 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:46.200 in the United States, population was growing, and it was 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:49.080 pretty much a guarantee that the next census was going 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:51.680 to take even longer to tabulate unless there was some 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:55.080 sort of major change. And then along came a fellow 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:59.240 by the name of Herman hollerith and engineer with a 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:03.960 goal to create a machine capable of tallying census results automatically. 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:10.200 He was building upon Joseph Maria Jacquard's invention the punch card. Now, 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:15.040 Jacquard used punch cards to guide looms as in weaving machines. 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:19.520 These these punch cards automated the weaving of certain patterns, 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:22.640 so that these intricate patterns that would normally take a 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:24.920 very long time to do by hand, could be done 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:28.680 very quickly through the use of these punch cards. Holler 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:32.480 has saw this as a way to designate results on 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:35.440 a census response. You would have a clerk who would 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:39.360 take a response. They would punch some holes into a 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:44.119 punch card that would represent those responses, and then feed 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:47.480 those two tallying machines that could tabulate the results quickly. 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:51.840 So Hollow designed cards that measured seven inches by three inches, 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:56.280 capable of holding just eighty characters total. Now, if you 0:07:56.560 --> 0:08:02.600 only have eighty characters to work with, every character is precious, 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:05.680 So using four of those eighty characters to designate a 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:09.480 year would be pure luxury. And so you decide you're 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:11.640 gonna cut a corner. You're just going to use the 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:16.880 last two digits of the year instead of the whole thing. Um, 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:19.040 if anyone's used Twitter back when it was at a 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:21.920 hundred forty characters, you know, like once you started getting 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:24.320 close to those hundred forty characters, he had to rethink 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:27.200 your message as and how can I how can I 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:29.800 make this more concise so that I can get across 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:33.640 my meaning? Well, the same sort of thing here. Now, 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:36.920 that was for nineteenth century punch cards, which, by the way, 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:40.640 that actually did work. The nine senses took two years 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:44.200 to tabulate compared to the eight years of the eighty 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:48.240 cents is but that need to conserve precious memory space 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:53.040 persisted well into the twentieth century. The prevailing thought was 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:57.040 that computer memory would improve over time and would eliminate 0:08:57.120 --> 0:08:59.880 the need to be so frugal with the programming code. 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:05.040 But then people didn't really bank on something called Worth's law. 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:08.880 That's w I R t H. Now in the tech world, 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:12.920 there are a few observations that we've collectively decided to 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:18.160 call laws. Arguably the most famous one is Moore's law. 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:21.600 That's based on an observation made by Gordon Moore, and 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:25.439 his observation centered more on the trend of the doubling 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:29.960 of the number of transistors on integrated circuit every two years. 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:33.040 Actually gets a little more persinkty than that it brings 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:37.400 in market pressures and finance and things. But that's a 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:40.920 decent summary. But these days we typically say that Moore's 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:44.760 law is a trend in which computers double in processing 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:48.840 power and or speed every two years, so that the 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:52.240 computer you buy two years from today will be twice 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:55.240 as powerful as the one you are currently using. Assuming 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:58.400 the one you're currently using as a new computer. Well, 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:03.160 Worth's law is a little bit different. Nicholas Worth wrote 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:06.520 in an article in n It was an article titled 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:11.800 a Plea for Lean Software that software was placing greater 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:15.320 demands on hardware at a rate that was even faster 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:19.199 than Moore's law. So, in other words, software was requiring 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:24.079 more processing power than computers could easily provide. And that's 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:27.880 even taking into account the incredible growth rate of Moore's law. 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:32.040 Programmers were not being efficient and companies were eager to 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:35.480 throw in all the possible bells and whistles and programs 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:38.560 to attract customers. And when you're trying to build in 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:42.440 the capability for your word processor to also play video files, 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:45.000 for some reason, you might not have the room to 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:48.480 also use four digits to mark the year. You cut 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:52.640 corners where you can so. Ironically, while computer memory would 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:55.920 improve and in theory allow for a change from the 0:10:55.920 --> 0:11:00.559 two digit year format to a four digit year format, 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:04.079 a lot of programmers just didn't take that route. Whether 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:06.680 it was because they had fallen into a habit and 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:09.160 they just used two digits because this is how we've 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:12.319 always done it, or because they literally wanted to save 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:15.760 that space for something else, just comes down to a 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:19.720 case by case basis. Also, hey, quick side note, the 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:22.760 argument we do it this way because we've always done 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:25.960 it this way is a dumb argument. Now it could 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:29.120 be that the old way is the best way that 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:31.560 would be totally valid. If it is in fact the 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:34.000 best way, sure keep doing it. You're not doing it 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:36.240 because that's the way you've always done it, but because 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:39.240 that's the best way to do it. But to only 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:42.400 do things one way, because that quote is how it's 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:45.400 always been done, en quote, is more often than not 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:48.000 an impediment to progress. Anyway, let me get back to 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:51.240 the story now. Part of the story is also about 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:56.080 standards and why we have them and why it's so 0:11:56.200 --> 0:12:00.920 darn frustrating when we refuse to actually use um when 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:04.560 it comes to expressing dates and time. There is an 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:08.120 international standard we could follow, and it goes like this, 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:12.160 four digits for the year, then two digits for the month, 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:15.760 then two digits for the day, than two digits for 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:19.679 the hour, two digits for the minutes, two digits for 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:23.320 the seconds. And if you followed that then there would 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:26.840 never be any confusion. Uh. This provides a precise way 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:30.720 to document the specific time, and if we had relied 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:33.360 on such a standard, then the Y two K problem 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:36.280 wouldn't have been a problem at all. Of course, that 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:39.599 would have required us to have the computer memory available 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:42.640 to use that standard every time. We needed to have 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:49.439 a year in the code, but it would actually work. 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:55.240 And uh, you know, sometimes we just don't incorporate standards 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:58.760 because incorporating standards requires effort, and you know, sometimes it's 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:01.559 just not feeling it that day. You know, you get 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:03.640 up and you're like, you know, I I just don't 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:08.040 feel like living up to standards. I certainly can identify 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:11.520 with that on a personal level. Well as early as 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:15.800 the nineteen eighties, some programmers began to wonder about issues 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:18.520 that might come up closer to the New millennium. In fact, 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:21.319 there were some industries that were already dealing with this, 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:23.680 but we'll get into that a bit later. This was 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:30.320 more about people actually using publications to talk about this issue. 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:33.200 So if a computer is looking at dates as two 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:40.079 digit numbers, what happens when goes to zero zero? Let 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:42.559 me tell you a quick story about a pinball machine 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:44.520 that used to play back when I was in college. 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:47.880 I promise this relates. And also I just love pinball 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:50.760 and it's one of my favorite stories. I went to 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:54.480 the University of Georgia and at you g A's student center, 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:57.120 we had a game room that included a row of 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:00.079 pinball machines and they were also about two dozen and 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:04.640 arcade games, and the pinball machines included some true classics 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:08.400 like Adam's Family, which is to date my favorite pinball 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:12.720 machine of all time. Twilight Zone another great, very difficult 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:15.480 pinball machine. But once in a while we would also 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:19.040 have someone rotate in a new or sometimes a very 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:22.640 old pinball machine, and I suppose they must have belonged 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:28.160 to some you know, alumnus is private collection or something. Anyway, 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:31.960 at one point, for some reason, we got a nineteen 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:35.840 seventy nine Star Trek pinball machine from Bally and just 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:38.560 so y'all know, I was in college in the nineties, 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:42.560 so this was a vintage pinball machine even back then. 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:46.560 The playing field on this machine had this one little 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:48.920 button in the floor of the playing field up at 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:51.600 the top left part, and it was designed so that 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:54.720 when the pinball would roll over it, it would activate 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:58.600 the button. And this button was in charge of activating 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:00.960 an extra ball after it has hit a certain number 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:04.960 of times. However, this particular machine had a button that 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:08.480 would stick a little bit, so it didn't take very 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:11.720 much effort to get that extra ball, and I, being 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:16.200 the enterprising sort pun intended because of Star Trek, I 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:19.440 decided one day that. You know, I didn't have any 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:22.480 classes that day. I was going to use this knowledge 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:25.400 to my advantage, and my goal was at the beginning 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:28.640 of each play just just focus on getting the ball 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:31.600 up in that upper left part of the playfield and 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:34.960 to activate the extra ball. That was goal number one. 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:37.800 Once I did that, from that point forward, I could 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:39.600 just play the game. I could do whatever I wanted 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:43.000 because I had an extra ball already, and even if 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:46.040 the ball drained, I wouldn't lose a life because that 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:48.240 was the extra ball. And as soon as I started 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:50.760 playing the extra ball, I would do it all over again. 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:53.000 And this meant that as long as I could get 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:54.960 it up into that upper left part of the game, 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:59.600 I could effectively play this game forever or until I 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:04.240 was exhausted. Well, the score of this particular machine could 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:06.920 only accommodate up to a certain number of digits, and 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:10.240 I can't remember what it was. Let's say it was 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:13.840 a million or just under a million. So I decided 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:16.600 I wanted to see what would happen if I exceeded 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:20.400 that number. I had the methodology there, and sure enough, 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:23.520 when I got to that point, you know whatever, it 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:28.760 was like nine thousand, nine nine or whatever. I saw 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:31.440 that the next point, the next thing that I hit 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:35.840 that generated points sent me back over to the zero 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:42.160 starting point, and the score keeping started over. So satisfied 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:45.400 that I had turned over the machine, I had rolled 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:49.600 over the score, I quickly finished out the game, and 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:51.320 I wanted to see if it would let me set 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:55.200 a high score, or if it would, you know, choose 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:57.760 my score as the high score. It did not. It 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:03.000 reverted back to the previous high score that was technically lower. Um. 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:05.199 So there was a rollover problem. In other words, like 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:09.960 once it hit zero, the computer interpreted that to mean 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:14.560 that we were back at ground zero. Well, in the 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:17.159 early eighties, a few programmers were starting to worry that 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:20.920 a lot of systems in software had a similar rollover 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:23.280 problem and it was going to all come to a 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:27.879 head in two thousand. With the two digit designation for years, 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:30.640 it could mean that computer systems would think the year 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:33.199 was starting back over at zero and work up to 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:37.760 a maximum before rolling over again. And this could potentially 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:40.240 be a big problem. So, for example, let's say you 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:43.760 were a go getter in and you got yourself one 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:46.840 of them fancy credit cards, and your credit cards expiration 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:50.080 date is in let's say two thousand two, and then 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:52.440 you go out and you take your fancy credit card 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:55.000 to buy you and someone special, you know, a really 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:58.600 nice meal, and you've got, you know, plenty of credit 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:02.040 on your card. Everything should be fine. Only when the 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:06.320 fancy restaurant runs your credit card, the underlying retail system 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:09.720 detects and error. The system is attempting to verify that 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:12.760 your card is valid, so it checks the expiration date, 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:16.720 but it's essentially saying, you know, is today's date before 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:20.240 or after the expiration date on this card. If today's 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:23.760 date is before the expiration date, everything's fine. If it's after, 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:26.320 that's a problem. And if the system was using a 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:30.240 two digit year designation, it would say, oh, zero two 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:34.040 is less than That means this card expired like ninety 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:38.480 seven years ago, and the transaction would get declined. This 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:44.440 really happened a lot. Now that's just a sample scenario 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:47.240 of something that could happen, the sort of you know, 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:50.800 tiny thing that would be inconvenient on an individual basis. 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:53.439 But it was just the tip of the iceberg for 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:56.960 possible problems. I'll talk about it more when we come 0:18:56.960 --> 0:19:07.719 back after this break. I mentioned a small scale problem 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:10.159 the one that's you know, huge when you apply it 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:13.960 to the entire population. But how about something that's even 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:16.720 bigger than that, And let's stick with the financial world 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:19.960 and talk about banks. So let's say it's nineteen eighty 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:23.320 five when you establish a savings account and you put 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:25.240 some money in the account and it begins to earn 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:28.560 interest at a certain percentage per year. And the way 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:31.479 the bank system determines this is by taking the current 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:35.919 year let's say, in this scenario, the current years, and 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:37.879 then you subtract from that the year in which you 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:40.760 established your account. So in this example, it would be 0:19:40.840 --> 0:19:45.359 nine eighty five. That gives us ten that's ten years 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:48.680 of earning interest, which then can be calculated and then 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:50.600 you know how much interest you've earned on your account, 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:53.640 which is pretty simple. But let's say instead, now it's 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:56.600 the year two thousand, and you're still using these two 0:19:56.640 --> 0:19:59.560 digit year designations, and now the bank system is trying 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:04.560 to subtract from zero zero. Now, remember the system is 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:07.159 assuming that both of these are happening in the century 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:12.040 or the one years between ninet So now the figure 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:15.200 it comes up with is negative eight five, and that 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:18.800 means that you've earned negative interest which gets pulled from 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:22.840 your account, it overdraws your account. So the real concern 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:24.919 was that the Y two K bug was going to 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:29.000 lead to numerous computer systems, particularly in the financial world, 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:31.960 but not exclusively there, and it was going to cause 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:35.080 them to miscalculate things like this, and as a result, 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:39.960 you would have widespread system failures. Accounts could get wiped out, 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:45.280 insurance policies could get canceled, mortgages could be flagged for foreclosure, 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:48.760 and so on. It would be catastrophic and a huge 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:52.480 headache to clean up, and all because we had migrated 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:56.000 to computer systems that we're using a two digit format 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:58.840 for the year. A few people became aware of this 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:02.119 pretty early on, but it took a surprisingly long time 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:04.520 for the concern to kind of filter out beyond a 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:09.840 small collective. The problem extended well beyond the financial industry. 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:12.800 Anything that was dependent upon a year, even something as 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:16.760 simple as sorting a group of files chronologically, started to 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:20.560 fall apart. If the computer systems interpreted two thousand as 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:26.120 really being nineteen hundred, it could affect navigation systems, communication systems, 0:21:26.119 --> 0:21:29.080 and all sorts of other industries. Now, from what I 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:32.080 can tell, people began to see this as an issue 0:21:32.960 --> 0:21:37.520 UH and started talking about it beyond internal groups around 0:21:37.600 --> 0:21:40.760 the early nineteen eighties, but didn't get much attention. Back then. 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:45.239 Some companies like IBM were probably more aware of it. 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:48.240 I mean, the company certainly claimed as much, but they 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:51.119 kept those discussions for the most part internal, so the 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:54.760 outside world wasn't really aware of it. In nineteen eight six, 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:58.639 Bruce Olmes wrote an article in the IBM Systems Journal, 0:21:58.920 --> 0:22:03.280 Volume twenty five, issue two. It has the title computer 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:07.919 processing of Dates outside the twentieth century, and in this article, 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:10.760 Olms points out that there's a need for a different 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:15.199 approach than this two digit year designation. Omas's solution was 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:19.840 to use the Lilian date format, which was his own proposal. 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:23.080 This format actually takes the date of the formation of 0:22:23.080 --> 0:22:27.520 the Gregorian calendar, which was October four two, and thus 0:22:27.560 --> 0:22:33.679 designates October two as date one. So the date of 0:22:33.760 --> 0:22:36.880 the creation of the Gregorian calendar is zero, The next 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:39.320 day would be one, the day after that would be two, 0:22:39.880 --> 0:22:43.000 and so the format goes up one per each day 0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:46.320 after that date. That would make today's date one hundred 0:22:46.359 --> 0:22:49.800 sixty thousand, two hundred sixty two today, by the way, 0:22:49.840 --> 0:22:54.119 being July one, in case you're listening from the future. 0:22:54.920 --> 0:22:58.840 Olms also suggested an approach that would use windows of 0:22:58.920 --> 0:23:03.120 time to try get around the two digit problem, generally 0:23:03.160 --> 0:23:06.760 speaking for modern systems that weren't dealing with dates and antiquity. 0:23:07.320 --> 0:23:11.760 He was suggesting that for any years designated as fifty 0:23:11.960 --> 0:23:15.800 or lower, we assume that those are for the year 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:19.280 two thousand, and for any years fifty one or higher, 0:23:19.840 --> 0:23:23.000 we assume that those are for the year nineteen hundreds. 0:23:23.040 --> 0:23:26.680 So with a little coding, the computer system interprets any 0:23:26.800 --> 0:23:30.080 two digit year number above fifty one to belong in 0:23:30.119 --> 0:23:34.879 the nineteen hundreds. Any two digit year belonging below fifty 0:23:35.240 --> 0:23:38.080 belongs in two thousand's. So if the year was listed 0:23:38.080 --> 0:23:41.120 as seventy seven, then it would mean it's nineteen seventy seven, 0:23:41.160 --> 0:23:43.520 But if it were listed as thirty three, it would 0:23:43.560 --> 0:23:46.840 be two thousand thirty three. So he was proposing this 0:23:46.960 --> 0:23:50.440 as a stop gap solution because it only lasts as 0:23:50.480 --> 0:23:53.240 long as whatever you're dividing year is, and we'll get 0:23:53.280 --> 0:23:58.719 back to that. And this would end up being a 0:23:58.720 --> 0:24:02.840 pivotal part of many companies Y two K strategies, which, 0:24:03.520 --> 0:24:06.600 as we'll see, as part of a problem. Ohms also 0:24:06.640 --> 0:24:10.720 pointed out how simple the problem was in concept, but 0:24:10.760 --> 0:24:15.280 how complicated it was in practice. Conceptually, the only thing 0:24:15.320 --> 0:24:17.520 anyone really has to do is go in and change 0:24:17.520 --> 0:24:20.520 a tiny bit of code and a file. So on 0:24:20.560 --> 0:24:24.439 an individual file basis, it was trivial. It was incredibly simple. 0:24:24.880 --> 0:24:28.280 You could do it in a in just a few minutes. 0:24:28.359 --> 0:24:30.879 But of course reality is way more complicated, because in 0:24:30.960 --> 0:24:35.119