The Millennium Bug

In a nutshell, the Millennium Bug refers to computers that are unable to cope with the year 2000. It's estimated that over 90% of computers in use today are susceptible to this problem, which arises from the fact that many computers and software programs use only two digits to represent the year.

Programmers chose this course of action to save precious memory and disk space in the early days of computing, but unfortunately this shortcut is still used in some software today. People use notation like 12/31/99 all the time, but what's a computer going to think when the date suddenly becomes 01/01/00? Some computers will think it's the year 1900, others will reset to 1980 or some other random date.

Since computer and software vendors are scrambling to prepare for the year 2000, the problem will likely be minimal for the average home PC user. But many corporations and government officials are sweating bullets. In addition to facing huge bills to address the problem (it'll cost Uncle Sam about $20 billion) they have to worry about the impact on a societal level.

A report by UK-based Corporation 2000 forecasts the new millennium will throw New York City into chaos, severely disrupting power supplies, schools, hospitals, transport and the finance sector. The study predicts that on January 1, 2000, electrical supply will be only 50% available for 10 days. Wall Street will be closed for eight days, hospital service will be emergency-only for a full month, and serious problems will cripple telephone, transportation and postal services.

If you think you'll still be using your current computer two years from now, you'd better do a little checking to see if it'll survive the Year 2000 (or Y2K) changeover. In addition to faulty software, it's likely that your computer's BIOS or CMOS (hardware that controls the function of your computer and interfaces with the operating system) has the Millennium Bug too. I ran a diagnostic on my trusty '486 and found to my surprise that it's going to have a major Y2K hangover.

The best way to test your computer's hardware for potential Year 2000 problems is to get a free diagnostic tool such as TEST2000. You can download this program via the Web at http://www.RighTime.com or have a look at the on-line Year 2000 Information Center where you'll find a wealth of information, articles, and other helpful tools. It's at http://www.Year2000.com.

If you can't get your hands on a diagnostic tool, here's a test you can try from the DOS prompt to test your hardware for possible Y2K troubles:

• Set the system clock to 11:59 PM on December 31, 1999. The commands DATE 12-31-99 and TIME 11:59p will do the trick.
• Turn the computer off, wait two minutes, and turn it back on.
• Issue the DATE command from a DOS prompt.

If your computer reports the year as 2000, that's good. But if the year is 1900, 1980, or something other than 2000, you've got the bug. Even though some systems can cross the century bridge and maintain the correct year, they may have trouble dealing with a date of 2000 or greater. Here's another test to check for that problem.

• Set your computer's date to 01-01-2000, turn the computer off, wait a minute, and turn it back on.

Most PC's will show the wrong date after this test, even if they passed the first test. If your computer fails either test, think about getting a motherboard upgrade. For less than $300 you can move up to a Pentium class machine and leave your troubles behind. But make sure the vendor certifies your new motherboard is "Year 2000 Safe" or you'll have a hotrod that can fail the Y2K tests even faster than the old machine.

Macintosh users, you don't have to worry about hardware-related Year 2000 problems, but software may still be an issue for Mac and PC users.

Most commercially available software, as well as the Windows 95 and Mac operating systems, are year 2000 compliant. But you may have an older spreadsheet or database program which keeps track of years with a two-digit field. If so, you'll have to upgrade or replace the software.

You can test your software by setting the system clock to some date in the year 2000, and then try to exercise as many features as possible. Pay special attention to any programs that do date calculations or comparisons, such as spreadsheets. If your amortizations come out wrong, your software may have a problem. If you have a database with date fields, run a battery of reports and look for unusual or negative values in the listings.

In addition to giving all your software a Year 2000 checkup, visit the Web sites of software vendors to find compliancy information. Most companies will be releasing upgrades in the next year to fix Year 2000 problems, so be sure to upgrade before doomsday.