Okay all you Tech Geeks ;)

On Tue, 13 Mar 2012 13:30:55 -0400, "jmcquown"
wrote:


"dgk" wrote in message
.. .
On Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:11:05 -0400, "jmcquown"
wrote:


"Matthew" wrote in message
sting.com...
...
during the transition. I've had problems with standard channels missing
from my television, only to mysteriously reappear a few days later. It's
almost as comical as everyone being terrified of Y2K.


I worked on a few things for Y2K. Mostly the reason that bad things
didn't happen was because so many people were updating systems to
prevent it. Not stuff like planes falling out of the sky, but maybe
so, I don't know that software.

One of my jobs was working on medical laboratory machine interfaces.
Since normal ranges are often dependent on the date the test is run
(normal ranges can vary based on the controls) having the wrong date
could certainly result in wrong treatments.

Oh, I'm not saying there weren't legitimate concerns. It was the media hype
that made me cynical. People believing it was the end of the world.
Stockpiling food, water and (in some cases) weapons. All because of what?
A two digit year in some computers. The software was easy enough to modify.
I worked for a company testing their software and that included converting
every date field to four digits. It was still silly. It's not as if the
new millenium snuck up on anyone. Especially not software developers.

Jill

The hysteria was fun though. It made sure we had a budget to operate
with!