Ed Greenberg

Ten Years Ago Today

I remember Y2K. The  year before the century turned. 1999. For those of you less than 14 years old, this may not be a big blip in your consciousness. For anybody older than about 16 or 17, looking back from 2010, it certainly was.

I remember the all the hype and worry, all the noise and the hurry. We were all afraid that the world would end. A cosmic event, fueled by superstition? No, rather a very real concern that our computers would fail because they could not handle dates greater than 1999.

Thousands of retired and almost retired programmers got a last gasp and a great boost to their retirement income in doing Y2K conversion and certification. They needed people who could understand the older languages and systems, to document, fix and adjust them so they would work with four digit dates.

In 1990, people responded to the threat by scoffing, “Chicken Little!”  By 1995, the industry knew it was real. Many millions of dollars were spent on conversion of software.

By 1997, survivalists were screaming that society and order would break down, as banks failed, electronic records of money were lost, savings wiped out. Milk not delivered. Power plants, telephone and the internet off line. Water and sewer to fail. A whole cascade of failures that would destroy anybody who hadn’t adjourned to rural Idaho.

My own experience was quite benign. In the summer of 1999, for reasons totally unrelated to Y2K, Roseann and I sold our Gold Wing motorcycle and purchased a truck and 5th wheel trailer. As fall approached, we started to think of a Christmas trip, and we settled on Arizona. We spent Christmas on the road, Christmas Week in Phoenix, and for New Years, we planned to be in the town of Why, Arizona, near Ajo. I was always fascinated by places back of beyond, and this seemed a good one.

It was then that I realized that I had removed myself almost pretty far from civilization for the Y2K event.

Now, Why isn’t much, and Ajo isn’t much more, but it’s certainly small-town. We had chosen a campground on the Tohano O’odham Indian Reservation, even housing a small casino.

On December 31, we made a dinner on the charcoal grill, then lit off a fireplace log. We sat outside and watched the sun go down and the stars come out, but went to bed long before midnight. Waking up on January 1, I went outside to have early morning coffee and enjoy the desert. Then I decided to drive down to the casino and see if the world had survived.

As I approached the casino, I saw electric light, a good sign, and a few stalwart gamblers feeding slot machines. I thought of San Jose, Silicon Valley and my employer, and for the first time in a week wondered how Y2K had gone for us. I was pretty sure we were going to be OK. We had spent enough on it.

I decided to call in and ask how things were going. I went to the pay phone — no cellular service out there — and dialed the toll free number. The phone system answered and I put in the extension of the computer room. An engineer answered the phone and sounded normal. I asked how things were and was told, “hang on, they really want to talk to you.” Oh Sh*t!

Well, like the rest of Y2K, it turned out to be a bust. Some Javascript on the home page of the web site (that displayed the date) was failing on old browsers. The computer room people HAD those old browsers and were freaking out. Other than that — a non-event.

It turns out that Y2K proved the old adage of the six Ps. That Proper Planning will Prevent Piss Poor Performance.

2 Responses to “Ten Years Ago Today”