The year 2000 will soon be upon us. As you may know, the year 2000 is the last year of both the 20th century and the 2nd millennium, and many people think it will be a year of import, for many various (and many incorrect) reasons.

In any case, you may also be aware that many envision that there will be computer problems of some sort. These predictions range from minor to catastrophic. This (for those of you that don't know) relates to the fact that a lot of existing software, written in languages that aren't used much for new programs but that exist in huge amounts, only stores part of the year date internally.  At the time the software was written, not many thought of the fact that the last year of the 20th century, 2000, and on did not start with 19.  In fact, some existing software (or at least parts of the internal operational functions) don't even always support dates earlier than the 1970's.

Regardless, many people have been working to fix these problems relating to the date. Much of this "obsolete" software has required companies to go find programmers still knowledgeable in languages like COBOL. New software must be written to take the last year of the 20th century/last year of the 2nd millennium (and after) problem into account. Leastwise, computers (and the software) might "think" that it's 1900 rather than 2000.  And then 1901 instead of 2001, and so forth.

Now, as you may imagine, this "retrothink" may cause certain problems with banks, social security, stocks, bonds, records like birth certificates, ATM functions, and other things that could be very important. Other problems may occur with such things as VCR machines, microwaves, pacemakers, and the like - although for these types of machines with imbedded (and therefore fixed-in-place) software, replacement of the entire item would probably be the only option.

In any case, many of the important applications and systems have already been, or soon will be fixed. Social Security has already fixed their machines. Others have also, such as banks and financial companies. This is an important issue, and it's being worked on.

However, I personally think that people are making far too much of this issue. I don't think that this "problem", even for those systems that aren't fixed on time, will cause many bad effects. I may be wrong, and I guess I'll see on January 1, 2000 if I am or not.

But I say, come on! Give it a rest. Y2K. Bah. Shut up about it already!