Talk:Y2K

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MERGED ARTICLE This article has content that was merged from Year_2000_problem. 10th Oct 2008.

I knew a guy at work who ordered an entire palette of dried food for his family in November 1999, which was delivered by truck, it took up his garage. He believed no food would be able to get into the city because the gas pumps would all break down. Oh how I laughed when we all went back to work after the hols. Then I did some more laughing at him. After that, I laughed at him a bit more. Just to enjoy the moment, I laughed at him a bit more. You get the picture. Then, I laughed at him again. And again. Once I was all done with that, I pointed at him and laughed at him a bit more. DogP^{Marmite Patrol} 08:10, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

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What many programmers were concerned about was that all hell would break lose on 9th Sept 1999, since early software often placed 9-9-99 in a date field as an error code or a dummy value. 91.85.36.62 (talk) 03:44, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Banking issue.

is this actually releated to y2k?

http://www.smh.com.au/business/welcome-to-2016-eftpos-glitch-spreads-20100104-lqus.html

Y2K38 question

What is 'BSD' (apart from 'that sort of acronym')? 82.44.143.26 (talk) 16:43, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Berkeley Software Distribution is the first google result. HTH, SmartFeller (talk) 17:06, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps a clarification for those of us of a fanfic/non-technical-computer disposition? 82.44.143.26 (talk) 18:52, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

The history of Unix is complicated, to give an account that is both brief and accurate is somewhat difficult, but I'll try: in the late 60s and early 70s Bell labs at AT&T developed the "UNIX" operating system (for the PDP-11 "mini" computer). At the time AT&T was forbidden to enter new markets due to its monopoly position, so UNIX given out freely, including the source code (which you need for modifications). One such copy was sent of to the University of Berkley which re-released UNIX with their additions and modifications and called it the "Berkley Software Distribution", or "BSD" for short. BSD itself later became the basis for various systems; those that still exist today are FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and DragonFlyBSD; but BSD code can be found in many other systems such as Windows, OSX, Linux, etc.

Linux, or "GNU/Linux", by the way, is not directly "based" on any Unix or BSD code, but it does copy many of its conventions and programs (which are partly standardized in the "POSIX" standard). This is why it's called "Unix-like". Technically, you can only call a system "Unix" if it's been certified to adhere to the POSIX standard. Carpetsmoker (talk) 20:30, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

I meant in the sense of stating that BSD referred to a 'computer program set up' rather than 'some other interpretation' :) 82.44.143.26 (talk) 16:02, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Are you confusing it with BSoD? That is a Microsoft thing, nothing to do with *n*x. SmartFeller (talk) 16:22, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

No - 'the one with an M in it which appears in some fanfic.' 82.44.143.26 (talk) 18:53, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Fearmongering like it's 1999!

Y2k Family Survival Guide With Leonard Nimoy Carpetsmoker (talk) 21:28, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

The 2038 problem

... will be something completely different - as the concept of 'the date bug' is now known, it can be worked round (even for legacy programs etc).

The Bug and the Basilisk

Could a pseudo-Millennium Bug be incorporated into programming so that should Roko's Basilisk come into existence the programming automatically 'rolls back' to a pre-RB version, or the RB 'bug....s itself out of existence'? 86.146.100.119 (talk) 22:12, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Millennium bug

I found a 1999 magazine in 'a box of stuff': in it there was a passing reference to someone who was under the impression they had swallowed a millennium bug. Anna Livia (talk) 09:56, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Any bets

... that there will be a Y10K problem? Just because "they" will have had 8000+ years to sort it out beforehand doesn't mean it won't occur. Nor will changing to another calendar (which will also have Y10, Y100, Y1000 issues) - the problem just gets buried in the conversion programs. Anna Livia (talk) 19:31, 12 March 2021 (UTC)