2000 Problem

2000 Problem Fiction, Fantasy, and Fact:'The Mad Scramble for the Elusive Silver Bullet . . . and the Clock Ticks Away.'The year 2000 is practically around the corner, promising a new era of greatness andwonder . . . as long as you don't own a computer or work with one. The year 2000 is bringing aPandora's Box of gifts to the computer world, and the latch is slowly coming undone.The year 2000 bug is not really a 'bug' or 'virus,' but is more a computer industrymistake. Many of the PC's, mainframes, and software out there are not designed orprogrammed to compute a future year ending in double zeros. This is going to be a costly 'fix'for the industry to absorb. In fact, Mike Elgan who is the editor of Windows Magazine, says ' . .. the problem could cost businesses a total of $600 billion to remedy.'IBM Portable Personal Computer :: Retrocomputing o...(p. 1)The fallacy that mainframes were the only machines to be affected was short lived as industryrealized that 60 to 80 million home and small busin ess users doing math or accounting etc. onWindows 3.1 or older software, are just as susceptible to this 'bug.' Can this be repaired intime? For some, it is already too late. A system that is devised to cut an annual federal deficit to0 by the year 2002 is already in 'hot water.' Data will become erroneous as the numbers 'justdon't add up' anymore. Some PC owners can upgrade their computer's BIOS (or completeoperating system) and upgrade the OS (operating system) to Windows 95, this will set them upfor another 99 years. Older software however, may very well have to be replaced or at the veryleast, upgraded.The year 2000 has become a two-fold...