Looking for research material on the Y2K panic

[Lyn]

Hello! This week I'm making a short film for one of my classes at art school. The film centers around a solipsistic high school girl who is anticipating the end of the world due to the highly sensationalized Y2K panic.

For those who don't know, at the time of the turn of the millenium, a flaw was discovered among all computer systems, where they only had two number inputs for the current date's year. People were afraid that this would cause a global computer malfunction, planes would lose signal, credit cards and ATMs would be rendered useless, pretty much anything technology-based would cease to function. The panic was very real, Bill Clinton assembled a Y2K crisis management team, and people began stocking up for doomsday. But as we all know, the issue was resolved and nothing bad happened.

I'm curious if anyone knows of any interesting resources that would give me a better glimpse into what this event was like. Retrospective articles are definitely appreciated, but I'd really love to find some archived forums or blog posts from when this was happening. Being able to read people's thoughts and reactions while Y2K was happening in real time would offer a new perspective that would serve to benefit my writing.

Thank you!

[Melooon]

This is a great topic to catalogue! I don't have a lot to add, you prob know about LGRs video on it, but here it is if not! Look in the description, he has a HUGE list of all the resources referenced including many books and primary source news articles.

Here are the links for archival reasons

http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/y2k/a2.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/582007.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/586938.stm
http://news.mit.edu/2002/terror-1120
http://www.computersincrisis.com/
http://www.informationweek.com/desktop/25-years-from-today-a-time-for-bugs/d/d-id/1108280
https://abcnews.go.com/Archives/video/dec-30-1999-y2k-safety-precautions-9334597
https://abcnews.go.com/Archives/video/jan-2000-y2k-problems-9345324
https://bmet.fandom.com/wiki/The_Millennium_Bug
https://books.google.com/books?id=_zsEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA59
https://books.google.com/books?id=97W638tj_NsC&pg=PA5
https://books.google.com/books?id=gNGR151Ti8UC&pg=PP30
https://books.google.com/books?id=h1IEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA80
https://books.google.com/books?id=iXSGUpazQKIC
https://books.google.com/books?id=wx0XAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA42
https://lowendmac.com/1999/112k-just-another-day-for-macs-but-not-for-all-apps/
https://slate.com/technology/2009/11/was-y2k-a-waste.html
https://timeline.com/lessons-y2k-panic-digital-db815487e374
https://www.911memorial.org/connect/blog/years-911-wtc-security-experts-prepared-y2k
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1999-02-17-9902170152-story.html
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1999-12-22-9912220295-story.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30576670
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/flashback-americans-go-amish-amid-y2k-fear/
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1999-12-28-9912280188-story.html
https://www.c-span.org/video/?154289-1/year-2000-world-atomic-safety
https://www.c-span.org/video/?154408-1/international-year-2000-preparations
https://www.deseret.com/1999/12/30/19483066/fears-over-y2k-are-cited-for-increase-in-gun-sales
https://www.hpcwire.com/1999/03/19/common-y2k-quick-fix-last-decades/
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/y2k-crisis-averted-or-con-1.1240907
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/01/opinion/01dutton.html?_r=0
https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/security/a30338692/y2k-panic/
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Y2K-bug-now-it-s-humbug-3196733.php
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/longterm/y2k/stories/privindu_092299.htm
https://www.wired.com/2000/05/y2k-worrywarts-look-back/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB946859361336019593

https://products.kitsapsun.com/archive/1999/06-29/0039_y2k__nightmare_or_inconvenience__.html
https://products.kitsapsun.com/archive/2000/01-02/0064_the_new_dawn__world_s_computers_r.html
https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-y2k-bug-is-back-causing-headaches-for-developers-again/
https://bit.ly/38guCEX
https://bit.ly/2RiTxkg
https://bit.ly/3aiCmYO
https://bit.ly/2QZKnug
https://bit.ly/2Rvf8Gv
https://bit.ly/2RqKg9T

[close]

I can confirm that this did indeed happen; I remember being 6 years old at a HUGE party in a castle owned by some wealthy friends of family friends for the millennium that was described as an "end of the world party" - it was very wild - even as a 6 years old it seemed major; we were riding go-karts down the hallways and drinking punch we were not supposed to be drinking and everyone was throwing glitter text saying "2000" at everyone!

Id also maybe bring in the wider trend of panics like the 1980s Dungeons & Dragons panic; or the 2012 end of the Maya calendar panic. People predict the end of the world at every available opportunity, it seems to be part of the human condition :S

[brisray]

Y2K was real and a lot of time and money was spent to make sure vulnerable systems were fixed before they became problematic. I was working in a data center at the time and we spent a lot of overtime going through old programs we had written for other businesses to make sure they would either continue to work properly or could be fixed. We never had much of a problem, but I had friends who worked for banks and those guys were busy. Although it hit the headlines in 1999, planning for it started years before.

Probably a little exaggerated, there's a couple of articles about what could have happened and some things that did - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/31/millennium-bug-face-fears-y2k-it-systems and https://securityintelligence.com/articles/y2k-bug-cybersecurity-today/.

I came across this 1999 article about cost and compliance - https://csegrecorder.com/articles/view/de-coding-y2k

Were some of the headlines about problems it could have caused exaggerated? For sure, but it could have been much worse if the programs hadn't been fixed.

The next Y2K type problem is going to be in 15 year's time, 2038. That's when 32 bit machines, and there's a lot of them still in use, can no longer cope with Unix Epochs - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem

[Melooon]

The next Y2K type problem is going to be in 15 year's time, 2038

I was thinking about this one yesterday - how is this gonna affect the retro computer community - can old versions of Windows/DOS and MacOS be patched? (do they need to be?) or will we all have to agree on a new retro-time offset where everyone in the retro community agrees that 1-1-2023 = 1-1-1983 on old systems?

I think a few people here (myself included) still have old 32-bit systems.. admittedly I dunno I'll still be using my G4 in 15 years, but if I am this could be a bit of a pain.

[Gans]

The poor protagonist in your film must be using Windows 3.11.

Lately in the radio show "Chaosradio", some odd events at the 1st January of the year 2000 were described. The guest whitnessed the new year from the top of a mountain, seeing the fire brigade driving chaoticly around the the city, with no real fires happening. It was discovered, that a handful of automatic fire alarms have been set off by buggy computers. So the drama was as real as it will be for the next year-2038 bug. But the companies overhyped it to heat up the market, too. The big (made up, didn't see one explode) stories were about the nuclear plants confusing the NOW-state with the PAST-state, when the data jump happens. Having the rods being... ehm... less optimal cooled leading to a catastrophe. As an IT insider, the guest on the radio show also told us about some cases of ancient computers, that nobody touches, because the person maintaining it retired last year. Nobody has a clue of some super old technology running things in the background. COBOL is a little hint there. But if something like a power plant was built 50 years ago with a computer system filling a whole room, that thing could still be there, if nobody thought an upgrade was necessary.

If you can find them, get some old magazines. Those are time capsules full of relevant information, that you'll never find on the internet. Maybe you can find the universities library, where magazines are archived longer than in the normal libraries.

Another link:
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/tech/reference/millennium-index.html

My '00 motherboard is Y2k proof, it says on the BIOS screen. What a selling argument. I guess that would be the cure for your main character. Don't go crazy, buy a Windows 2000/XP machine.

[brisray]

How odd, I was thinking of industrial process computers but of course many here would be interested in this.

DOS and early Windows versions should be OK until 2107. That's because their epoch started on January 1, 1980 but UNIX chose January 1, 1970.

Windows XP. It sounds odd, but even though XP had a 32bit version, it was compiled with 64bit signed integers. Very roughly, what happens is that as a 32bit memory space gets filled up a "carry flag" is set and a second 32 bit space is used to store the rest of the number. Windows XP, even the 32bit version, should be good up until the year 30,828!

The good news is that 64bit based systems should be good until the year 292 billion.

This guy explains a lot of this better than I can -

[brisray]

@Gans - "My '00 motherboard is Y2k proof, it says on the BIOS screen" that's funny.

I was thinking about COBOL as well. Languages like Python and Java are very much in demand, but there's still plenty of work around for people who know older languages like COBOL and Fortran (mostly, I think, finance), Assembler (embedded systems) and even Ada - avionics, DoD, NASA and other mission critical applications.

[Gans]

Some '00 BIOS photos in the attachments. Obviously you can set the Y2K compatibility to "Disabled" to simulate the proper millenium bug experience.

I know a guy, who repairs eleveators. The oldest one, which he worked on, is over 100 years old. And between brand new and all-mechanical, there is everything around there. Control boxes with circuit boards that look like a C64 computer from the 80s. I wonder if those 8-16-32 bit chips are ready for action in 2038.
Fun fact: An argument for conserving the GSM (2G) mobile network in Germany were the old elevators, having their emergency call system run over the old mobile networks. So there is a lot of old stuff running in the background.