The ’90s was a revolutionary decade for computing and modern technology growth. Old computers running AOL as the best messenger at the time, Nokia brick phones, walkmans, old consoles like the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis, and large televisions. So close to our time but so far technology-wise. Back then we had a narrow view of what we could do with the technology we had. So when 1999 came around everyone was scared, why you may ask? All because of a rumor going around about computers going to break because of the new millennium. This rumor scared people so much so that they sold all of their computers thinking it would explode or break. As my mother said, a lot of her friends were planning on going off the grid to avoid the “upcoming chaos.” People thought the new year would overload the computers so much that it would rule out the computers they all had. Not only were computers feared but also phones. All of the phones had their own clock built in. So everyone thought that the phones would break and never work again. The Nokia stocks ended up dropping and losing a lot of money due to this.
Panic broke out mostly because people at the time didn’t know how computers worked so they thought the new year would confuse the computers as it “only knew the 1900’s.” So instead of going from 1999 to 2000, as simple as it sounds, seemed like it would crash markets and ruin the world.
The real problem was that computers made years into two numbers. To save space 1990 was shortened to 90. So when 2000 comes people thought that it would think 00 was going to turn out to be 1900 which would break the computers. In Asian countries that were more isolated were seen to be less prepared essentially putting them through economic crises. The United States was doing everything it could to prevent this crisis. The U.S. is said to have spent around 300 billion dollars to fix this potential bug. In Europe, it was different as they were prepared but didn’t have enough to fix the bug. So instead they got ready for harm reduction if all the technology would fail. The military stood by for calls for assistance if needed.
This was especially bad for computer companies who had to recall items in case of computers breaking when bought. They were ready for incoming lawsuits for broken computers which would make them lose money. However not as much money as they were losing from no one buying the product in general. Computers or anything with sensitive calendar technology was low on demand. Extremely low where stocks were losing so much money due to people believing they would break as soon as the next new year came around.
A story from my mother said that at work, which was a credit union, the whole company was ready to trash all the computers if need be. So she said they had tech guys coming in every week backing up all the computers in the building and the facilities they had. Because of this, my mother said she got around a month (not consecutively) off. She says in her own words that “The whole situation was just not needed as nothing happened when new years came.”
Y2K Apocalypse By: Xavier Arenas