All right, let's hear it. What was going on in your head with the switch from December 31st, 1999 to January 1st, 2000 approaching?
The Matrix thread got me thinking of 1999 and the hysteria surrounding the welcoming of 2000, the new millennium. Or is 2001 the new Millennium?
I will be the first to admit my dad was one of those wackos screaming his head off every other single fucking day about stocking up on Ramen noodles and cat food lol. He kept thinking the grid would falter because the computers didn't "know" how to read 2000. If I asked him about this fun topic today or I brought it up he would deny everything. Of course. Or he would say he was joking ... but he definitely wasn't.
Anyone brave enough to admit that they were overburden with hysteria? Any anecdotal fun? Aliens? Power failure?
To be honest, at the time ... I do remember having a little bit of fun reading some magazines regarding the end of the world. Of course I never took it that seriously but hey whatever.
I do remember everything was labeled "2000", even soda ...
I remember being sick but gutted it out. We were drinking champagne while cautiously convinced things would be pretty quiet. We were only really concerned with some possible payroll or book keeping issues. Turns out nothing happened.
This. Some companies and programmers made some nice money at the time. I was too early in my career to take advantage...dammit ;)
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making a ton of money. Our group at NSWC Dahkgren ran several tests to see if the hysteria was valid (in mid 1999) and found there to be no problem whatsoever with our legacy systems. Everything we had needed to be "Y2K Compliant". Lol. Waste of time and money. Still, we weren't sure what was up with industry and their systems.
This. Some companies and programmers made some nice money at the time. I was too early in my career to take advantage...dammit ;)
At my company it wasn't the big legacy system designed in the late 1960's that was a problem but the newer stuff. One old-timer showed me a memo from the design phase of the old system. It reminded programmers to use 4 digit years whenever the field might be used in math. The funny thing is the example they gave was not about the year 2000 but instead about someone born in the 1890's and how their age would get calculated wrong with just two digits.
We laugh about it now... I would like to add my opinion that this was a non-event, because a lot of people took it seriously.
The actual day was boring - all hands on deck just in case and nothing happened.
As least I could say I did my part while the rest of the world collapsed.
I still cringe at NT users and PCMIA cards. Good ol Plug and Play made it so much easier with newer OS's. Bleh..
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We were all on call that NYE,and had to go in on New Years day. But,nothing blew up and all our testing was really thorough and done well in advance. So, essentially we had breakfast in the office and were on our way home by 11am
There was a valid concern. Spinning survivorship hindisght bias into "durrr weren't these pencil neck geeks idiots?" is fucking stupid, particularly when you aren't even well versed on why people were concerned.
You don't know more about the computer architecture that was being used in 1999 than the people that were there at the time, so maybe don't use it as an example of someone crying wolf.
It's so fucking annoying when people who don't know wtf they're talking about act like they knew better than everyone who did, especially when it's 20 years after the fact.
A LOT of fucking work went into making sure there wasn't an issue when Y2K hit. It wasn't magic, show the people who worked to make sure nothing occurred some respect instead of pissing in their snowflakes and saying nothing would have happened anyway.
The lack of respect for people that averted a potential disaster is just absolutely despicable, yet completely unsurprising, particularly considering the demographic that frequents BBI
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...most legit newspaper articles on it said it wouldn't be an issue, that major systems had been proactive.
Major systems were proactive based off of the labor that everyone in this thread is mocking as unneeded and fear mongering though.
The lack of respect for people that averted a potential disaster is just absolutely despicable, yet completely unsurprising, particularly considering the demographic that frequents BBI
Holy fucking cow dude