The Millennium Bug and You

-Eric Campbell/Everything 2000

 

We've all heard about how the millennium bug is going to cost businesses between $600 billion to $1.3 trillion U.S. dollars to fix. What has been largely ignored in the media is how the computer date crisis is going to impact us at home.

 

During the past 50 years, people have become increasingly dependent - directly, or indirectly through government and business - on computer technology. "Embedded systems," which literally are any systems with computer chips inside, can be found everywhere from your automobile to your toaster and VCR. They are also used to run giant systems such as the airport navigation, traffic signals and ATM machines.

 

Government officials are grappling with the lack of awareness about the world's computer dependency as they try to explain to taxpayers the potential impacts of the computer date crisis. Even so, they only can make educated guesses about whether traffic signals will work as people leave end-of-the-century parties, or whether elevators and electronically locked doors will operate properly when most people return to work the following Tuesday.

 

"We are not completely sure," authors of the state of Oregon's Year 2000 web pages acknowledge, "but left unchecked, problems could arise with pension calculations, licenses and registrations, budgeting, and even prisoner release dates. We do know quite a few PCs reset back to 1984 and in some cases 1904 when pushed past the year 2000. Some have suggested we even need to look at everyday electronic monitoring equipment, such as heating and cooling systems, and even stop lights."

 

Embedded systems "are really the dark horses" of the Y2K challenge, according to Arik Hesseldahl of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City. They can include typical household items as VCRs, digital clocks, clock radios, digital watches, telephone answering machines, microwave ovens, even cars - some of which use computers to keep track of engine maintenance and notify the driver when it's time to have the car checked.

 

The Columbia list of non-household embedded systems that could fail after 1999 includes building security systems, fire suppression systems, elevators, food and soda vending machines, and airplane and control tower radar systems.

 

Civilian and military avionics also are on a long list published by Florida's government, along with laboratory and medical equipment; hand-held devices; satellites; air conditioning systems; toll booths; parking lot gates; time recording systems; factory machinery; vaults; safes; surveillance security systems; copiers; fax machines; telephone systems; water and sewage systems; electric grids; sprinkler systems; automated teller machines; elevator systems; and escalators.

 

"The days of using a mechanical controller are gone. Most controllers were replaced by computers (or chips) with systems and programs that were embedded and sealed into all sorts of equipment. Embedded systems have often been overlooked in the crush to repair the Year 2000 computer date problems," wrote Richard Schmitt for the Florida Association of Counties in September 1997. "These systems come packaged with the equipment as computer chips on boards. Changing these systems usually requires special knowledge of embedded programming languages, as well as soldering new chips or toggling electrical signals into the old chips. In other words, someone will usually have to replace one or more boards, or new equipment will have to be purchased."

 

Government data processing departments will be too busy with their own Y2K problems to worry about converting equipment outside their departments, Schmitt added.

 

One resident of Florida, syndicated humor columnist Dave Barry, is aware of the issue but less concerned. "Experts tell us that if it {the millennium bug} is not fixed, when the Year 2000 arrives, our telephone system will be unreliable, our financial records will be inaccurate, our government will be paralyzed and airline flights will be canceled without warning. In other words, things will be pretty much the same as they are now," Barry wrote in a column referenced in a U.S. congresswoman's October 1997 speech.

 

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