Yeah but that was because people though it would make computers turn into flaming cyborg demons because they can't count.
I mean, seriously, how ignorant does one have to be to have believed that Y2K theories had any basis in fact? The nearest leap in logic should be "Computers that didn't account for years past 1999 might have minor display problems", not "the computer systems ruling the entire world will collapse and leave civilization in ruins".
Actually, as I think about it, the entire thing is dumb. It would be more work to make any sort of glitch happen relating to the year 2000, or any year.
if(date == January 1st && time == 12:01AM):
year++;
I don't know much about programming operating systems, but I can't imagine the calendar year being any more difficult than that.
Well, if you're only keeping track of two digits (memory was sparse back then)...You'd get January 19100 instead of January 2000. Also, YES, SYSTEMS WERE THROWING CRAZY ERRORS. A relative was working as a programmer back even years BEFORE we were all in a tizzy, and kept running into, IIRC, problems where the date a project management system was giving was "before" the start date. Because rollover in the two digits.
If you're gonna talk about Y2K, actually consider the situation.
See, this is why one does one's research before randomly asserting
Also, have you read about the Unix epoch glitch coming up? Same type of problem-rollover. And then we get subtraction from the beginning of the epoch, and anything that's queued for AFTER that rollover AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN. Tada. Thus the panic over Y2K.