Y2K isn't simply a date problem. When January 1, 2000 comes by, all electronical equipment will NOT simply go berserk. The Y2K problem is also not just based upon the computer's internal clock. The internal clock is easy to fix, and it would be nice if simply fixing it would fix the problem. However, that is not the case. The problem is that there is a lot of electronical equipment and, in particular, computer software that uses built-in clocks. The problem is not fixing it, since that is relatively simple. The problem is finding all the "units", to use the economical term, and then finding the encoded clock by sifting through the source code. For some information about these embedded systems and what uses them go here.
Also, I don't know if many people realize it, but January 1, 2000 is not the only problem. When January 10th comes around, that will add another digit. While that might not cause any problem, February of 2000 is a LEAP year. I'm not sure, but February of 1900 was probably not. So many people have problems remembering leap years, myself included. To have a leap year at the same time. . . . Draw your own conclusions.
However, not all these internal clocks are that important. Even if they have it, it does not necessarily mean that it uses it. The problem with Y2K is the date and the year, but not the rest of the clock. A large portion of those "units" simply uses the timing, and not the date portion. It is often included anyway since it is fairly standard coding. So the only things to worry about are those that rely upon the date factor. This involves such thing as financial information, employment records, etc. However, the situation is also, in a way, similar to if someone steels your credit card, and you report it, that the credit card company cannot charge you for any charges made. The Y2K problem is widely known, so if a company is not prepared, they cannot hold individuals responsible. Of course there will still be many problems, but they will just have to be dealt with.
The problem that affects most things other than, but also including, the date dependence stuff is the simple change. Computers and other equipment might not have any noticeable problem if they are mutually non-Y2K compliant. For example, say you had a credit card that was not Y2k compliant, but expired in 2002. It would have encoded 02, and a reader that was non-Y2K compliant might accept it, though I am uncertain. However, what I am talking about, is that the transition of the date from 99 to 00 is itself NOT DEFINED. Normal transition from one state to the next as far as time is concern is always upward. This sudden jump down, and the change itself, does not have a set outcome. Since the state is not well defined, where it will end up is completely random and unpredictable, but IT WILL DO SOMETHING. IT WILL NOT SIMPLY QUIT. The only problem is where it will go, and what it will do. There probably are a limited number of things that the circuit will do, but it is completely random so even if the probability can be computed, it is not the real probability since there is non. It is truly random.
Even this might not cause everything to mess everything up. It might even end up in a desirable state. The BIG areas of MAJOR concern are the communications nets, and the power grids. If you remember a few years ago, there was a huge power grid failure that took out most of the western states. The thing was, a tree feel on a power line. It was a fairly big one, but not a hugely important one. The power grid failure was caused because it was such a hot day. Everyone had their air-conditioners on, and did not turn them off after the power failure. Even though the grid could handle all those air-conditioners, the sudden jump in demand when they got the local part up caused the entire grid to fail. The entire United States is tied into only 4 power grids. If the Y2K problem caused, say all the washers in the world to turn on at once, the sudden increase of just all the washers, nothing else, could perhaps bring down the power grids in the entire world. So it would be advisable, in any power outage, to turn of everything and wait till the power comes back on and stabilizes before turning everything back on.
Here is an online book that seems somewhat resourceful.
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