LGR Tech Tales - Y2K: The Year 2000 Problem

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  • Опубликовано: 4 ноя 2024

Комментарии • 3,9 тыс.

  • @LGR
    @LGR  4 года назад +1861

    Special thanks to my friends and colleagues who brought to life those 20-year-old Y2K comments! In order of appearance:
    Gaming Historian | ruclips.net/user/mcfrosticles
    Pixelmusement | ruclips.net/user/Pixelmusement
    Retro Man Cave | ruclips.net/user/RetroManCave
    The 8-Bit Guy | ruclips.net/user/adric22
    PushingUpRoses | ruclips.net/user/pushinguproses
    Brutalmoose | ruclips.net/user/brutalmoose
    Modern Vintage Gamer | ruclips.net/user/jimako123
    Nostalgia Nerd | ruclips.net/user/nostalgianerdvideos

    • @GunGryphon
      @GunGryphon 4 года назад +104

      The voiceovers really enhanced the experience, thanks!

    • @MontieMongoose
      @MontieMongoose 4 года назад +94

      This is the best RUclips crossover of all time.

    • @CandyGramForMongo_
      @CandyGramForMongo_ 4 года назад +64

      I recognize those voices!

    • @chriscrossan8034
      @chriscrossan8034 4 года назад +35

      That's like a who's who of RUclips tech glitterati. Nice!

    • @matthewrease2376
      @matthewrease2376 4 года назад +11

      Excellent job Clint. I had the goofiest smile on my face when I saw the title of the video.

  • @pauld2810
    @pauld2810 4 года назад +1670

    My favorite joke of 1999: "The Millennium Computer Bug is now abbreviated to Y2K. Isn't that the sort of thing that caused the problem in the first place?"

    • @jamesslick4790
      @jamesslick4790 4 года назад +46

      IKR?, LOL!

    • @seanc.5310
      @seanc.5310 4 года назад +15

      That's great! 😂

    • @louistournas120
      @louistournas120 4 года назад +58

      But Y2K saves a lot of bytes on the youtube servers.

    • @justaman5418
      @justaman5418 4 года назад +8

      bet it was a bunch of dorks at mit that came up with this then set it on the public

    • @Graham-ce2yk
      @Graham-ce2yk 4 года назад +38

      I used to have a Y2K bug calendar and the highpoint was one image where someone puts a frozen chicken in the microwave and when the door opens it's turned into a live chicken...

  • @30AndHatingIt
    @30AndHatingIt 4 года назад +767

    I was having explosive diarrhea the exact moment Y2K was supposed to happen. I remember thinking, even if the lights go out, I've got bigger problems to deal with right now.

    • @pennyandwoody
      @pennyandwoody 3 года назад +20

      Lol I'm sorry for your pain 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

    • @DrNo64
      @DrNo64 3 года назад +70

      Imagine the toilet paper stopped working at Y2k

    • @godonammdo
      @godonammdo 3 года назад +45

      Missed opportunity. I’ve got more shit to worry about.

    • @Mick_92
      @Mick_92 3 года назад +47

      Starting the new millennium with a blast.

    • @Nihilistic-Mystic
      @Nihilistic-Mystic 3 года назад +1

      heh

  • @ryanellis4818
    @ryanellis4818 4 года назад +118

    I was a kid when the ball dropped on the year 2000.
    Coincidentally our power went out a little bot later and my Grandfather lost his SHIT for like an hour until it came back on.

  • @reflexnight
    @reflexnight 4 года назад +762

    12 am that night the manager of my apartment complex turned off the power for 5 minutes as a practical joke.

    • @ricklee2114
      @ricklee2114 4 года назад +35

      lmao good one

    • @reflexnight
      @reflexnight 4 года назад +33

      @@ricklee2114 I thought so as well, the old people living there didn't even notice and he came clean about it the next day.

    • @monytontana5184
      @monytontana5184 4 года назад +51

      Hahaha! My dad did the same thing at our house, as a prank to us kids and my mom... Needless to say my heart dropped for a second, until I looked out the window and saw the neighbors' Christmas lights just a gleaming.

    • @speedstriker
      @speedstriker 4 года назад +5

      Gottem!

    • @nicknem8
      @nicknem8 4 года назад +24

      That sounds illegal. Some people depend on electricity for medical needs, such as oxygen compressors. While patients with these devices are advised to have backup tanks in the event of power loss, I think there is a very big difference between a loss of power for uncontrollable circumstances (such as inclement weather) and someone intentionally turning it off as a prank.

  • @jpsplat
    @jpsplat 4 года назад +416

    My dad horded a lot of food for the impending y2k disaster. We finished all of the rice in 2014.

    • @matchmakerchris7617
      @matchmakerchris7617 4 года назад +63

      14 years worth of rice, only that must have cost a fortune.

    • @alexsilva28
      @alexsilva28 4 года назад +14

      That's a lot of fiber tho 👌

    • @jpsplat
      @jpsplat 4 года назад +149

      To be fair, we didn't eat rice every day or use it every time we had rice. But I distinctly remember having dinner with the fam one day and my mum saying "And that's the last of dads Y2K rice!" Lol

    • @MJ-uk6lu
      @MJ-uk6lu 4 года назад +54

      That lasted longer than Windows XP

    • @ronindebeatrice
      @ronindebeatrice 4 года назад +14

      That's fantastic.

  • @CapnBlindbeard
    @CapnBlindbeard 4 года назад +309

    Ok, I think we're going to need an Oddware episode on the Y2K BIOS card.

    • @MrSp0iler
      @MrSp0iler 3 года назад +4

      First world problems

  • @corbor
    @corbor 4 года назад +541

    I want LGR themed “Y2K Compliant” stickers to put on everything

    • @paradoxmo
      @paradoxmo 4 года назад +37

      Cory E. It would be better to start slapping Y2K38 stickers on stuff now (;

    • @subduedreader5627
      @subduedreader5627 4 года назад +18

      LGR Compliant?

    • @alexinabox1232
      @alexinabox1232 4 года назад

      Seconded.

    • @houstonhelicoptertours1006
      @houstonhelicoptertours1006 4 года назад +20

      My old coffee machine in the office still has that "Designed for Windows XP" sticker on it.

    • @ReshiLuna
      @ReshiLuna 4 года назад +3

      Put one on my gameboy! lol.. I just replaced some pokemon save batteries. :3

  • @eddiehimself
    @eddiehimself 4 года назад +750

    "If you can't get power, you can't get water!" That guy knows his SimCity lol.

    • @oz_jones
      @oz_jones 4 года назад +23

      At least the ROADS were safe

    • @Demonslayer20111
      @Demonslayer20111 4 года назад +30

      That just isn't true tho. Almost(not all but most) cities have gravity fed water systems that can supply normal water pressure for at least a couple days. That's what those giant water tanks on hills or on a tower are for.

    • @eddiehimself
      @eddiehimself 4 года назад +12

      @@Demonslayer20111 /------->WHOOOOSH

    • @Demonslayer20111
      @Demonslayer20111 4 года назад +9

      @@eddiehimself not even. I play city skylines. In real life though, that's just not how it works

    • @g00gleminus96
      @g00gleminus96 4 года назад +10

      @@Demonslayer20111 Not my city. We do have gravity-feed tanks buried in bunkers on hilltops (not in towers becasue the water needs to be insulated against the cold in winter) but they are only designed to act as a buffer. Their main usage scenario is in case a main water pressure pump should go offline; so that there will still be pressure in the lines while the reserve pump(s) switch over and get up to full capacity. While the switchover should only take a few seconds the buffers are there to ensure the transition is smooth and no drop in pressure in the main lines occurs. This is particularly important for the fire fighting service. Contrary to common belief, maintaining water utility capacity isn't as simple as just flipping a switch.

  • @_motho_
    @_motho_ 4 года назад +534

    FINALLY.
    I’ve seen so many youtube “history” channels stating, “lmao everyone freaked out about y2k but nothing happened” and it pisses me off. Y2K DIDN’T HAPPEN BECAUSE PEOPLE LIKE MY DAD WORKED THEIR ASSES OFF FIXING IT BEFORE IT HAPPENED.

    • @AgentTasmania
      @AgentTasmania 4 года назад +73

      Shoggo
      The flood didn’t reach the town at all, that levy was a waste of time!

    • @aidancommenting
      @aidancommenting 4 года назад +43

      That's like saying antivirus software is a waste of a download because your PC didn't have a virus in the first place.

    • @HR-wd6cw
      @HR-wd6cw 4 года назад +19

      @Shoggo, not every thing was affected by Y2K. Most things would just revert back to 1/1/70 without a big problem. I worked in IT during that time frame and people were freaking out about it, and I told most people that the worst that was likely to happen is your AV might expire because the date changed to some weird date, or something similar, but the world was NOT going to end.

    • @esseubot
      @esseubot 4 года назад +7

      Props to your dad!

    • @wta1518
      @wta1518 4 года назад +17

      “The vaccines are useless, because they were created as the diseases are on their way out”
      Yeah, because there were vaccines you idiot.

  • @robertmudry4242
    @robertmudry4242 4 года назад +376

    I went through that nightmare as a defense contractor. I don’t know what was worse: the late nights hunting down and fixing the problems, or all the paperwork required to show we actually fixed it.

    • @empoleonmaster6709
      @empoleonmaster6709 4 года назад +15

      Ummm did you try just writing that you "Did a hacker man thing to reverse the techosphere?" I mean no one probably read those reports, right?

    • @AC3handle
      @AC3handle 4 года назад +8

      @Drakilicious Nothing Alex Jones has ever done has helped anyone, anywhere.

    • @NeighborSenpai
      @NeighborSenpai 4 года назад +2

      @Drakilicious Alex Jones was relevant back then? I thought his existence relies on unchecked social media

    • @Rustyshackleford20
      @Rustyshackleford20 11 месяцев назад +2

      TPS reports?

  • @AFGiant
    @AFGiant 4 года назад +670

    14:24 Hey! That's my dad! My family owned Super Video in NY which was one of the few businesses actually impacted by the Y2K bug. My dad had paid someone to proof the computer system but it still got hit and rang up those outrageous late fees. I don't remember the system or the make of the computers (I'm sure my dad would remember, I can ask) but I remember all the terminals had that green glowing text with the command line and everything. We've got a scrapbook of newspaper clippings from around the world and a bunch of VHS news recordings of all the coverage our store got. Weird times. Fun to see it here!

    • @tcbobb1613
      @tcbobb1613 4 года назад +36

      you should have given him a card for free movies. even better have expired date 12/31/2019 of the card.

    • @dacypher22
      @dacypher22 4 года назад +40

      That is awesome! Your family's video store became one of the famous and funniest anecdotes of the Y2K bug. I think I probably heard the story from about 8 different people. I think because it was the one story that most closely matched people's understanding of the issue and it was humorous of course.

    • @JoelElRican
      @JoelElRican 4 года назад +18

      I would have loved to see your dad's face when he pulled up the customers info and then sees the "$91,250" late fee 🤣😂

    • @aidancommenting
      @aidancommenting 4 года назад +24

      "Hi, I'm here to return this movie."
      You're a century late, that'll be $91,250

    • @kaledmarrero1011
      @kaledmarrero1011 3 года назад +2

      Say hi to my pops while you’re at it!

  • @annabeth5649
    @annabeth5649 4 года назад +114

    I remember when Y2K hysteria was gain traction my Dad (who had been working at HP since the 70s) said they (government /companies) are just creating panic to cover up procrastinating for 30 years and it's going to cost a lot more money to be done in time.

    • @georgeoldsterd8994
      @georgeoldsterd8994 2 года назад +7

      Which he was technically correct about, if you think about it.

    • @this_is_patrick
      @this_is_patrick 2 года назад

      @@georgeoldsterd8994 Nah, businesses and governments were pretty content with fixing it behind the scenes and away from the public eye.
      As usual, the media and charlatans were the ones who spun it from an inconvenient issue into an existential crisis that would wipe every single human other than the tribals in New Guinea and the Amazon.

  • @Unclaimed_Username
    @Unclaimed_Username 4 года назад +306

    "Y2K-Mart" is possibly the most dated name for a website I can think of that's not Geocities.

    • @ahniandfriends123
      @ahniandfriends123 4 года назад +8

      You haven't seen 21Store . com (yes, that site existed. it went down from the dot-com crash, though, so you can't access it now.)

    • @seanc.5310
      @seanc.5310 4 года назад +8

      Hey man easy on geocities

    • @wordart_guian
      @wordart_guian 4 года назад +1

      my high school used to have an email adress @libertysurf.com, I think that's pretty dated

    • @screwthenet
      @screwthenet 4 года назад +2

      1983s America Online, Symbolics.com, 1985. WorldWideWeb 1990. Then theres acme.com which predated geocities by almost a year in 1994. And a couple others ye can look up ^~^.

    • @wordart_guian
      @wordart_guian 4 года назад

      @@screwthenet most of these don't sound that dated

  • @m7hacke
    @m7hacke 4 года назад +180

    I worked on the Y2K project as a programmer for two different companies. It was nice being apart of something so important and global. I remember sleeping on the floor at my desk at work when my boss woke me up after midnight and said that everything worked and we could go home. They were very big projects with long hours and a great success. It was definitely a real problem, but the media did blow it out of proportion.

    • @superwinfieldgold
      @superwinfieldgold 4 года назад +1

      there was no problem you are just a sheep

    • @FeedMeMister
      @FeedMeMister 4 года назад +36

      It's funny how this is a case of it being a big problem, but so misunderstood it was seen as magnitudes worse, that the end successful result diminishes the original problem.
      You're a victim of your success, or a minor hero if people like @superwinfieldgold hadn't so invested in your failure.

    • @wolvenar
      @wolvenar 4 года назад +24

      I was a contract programmer working on bank system updates for Y2K back in the late 90s. There were most definitely going to be big trouble if it were not for a small army of people worldwide tackling the issue. I got to meet a lot of the same people over and over while doing this work. I had learned several older languages very young, and it payed off. Word got out somewhat locally, then that expanded widely. I wound up working all over America meeting many people that were the original software writers. Sadly many of them have probably passed by now. I was still in my late teens and always felt a little out of place alongside of these older seasoned programmers. It's always nice to talk to someone that shared the experience even if I didn't personally ever meet them. Thanks so much to all who helped prevent any real problems.

  • @0311Mushroom
    @0311Mushroom 4 года назад +87

    I still remember this and laugh.
    I was already a computer tech, and I had a lot of people ask me if they should have a Y2K survival kit. And I always shocked them with a simple "Yes".
    They would then of course ask if I thought there would be chaos, and I of coirse said no. But we lived in LA, and a Y2K kit was the same as an earthquake kit, and everybody should have one of those.

    • @wta1518
      @wta1518 4 года назад +16

      Yeah, people need to understand that having a Y2K stash isn’t bad, because you should always have a stash like that.

    • @torterra1826
      @torterra1826 2 года назад +1

      *course

    • @GammaSierra
      @GammaSierra Год назад +6

      Sound advice 👍🏼 Personally, I didn't pay any attention to the panic. I remember the entire neighborhood gathering at our house to ring in the year 2000. Built a huge bonfire. Was so much fun (back when neighbors actually looked at and talked to another). One of our neighbors pulled the main disconnect to the house right as the timer hit zero to try and scare us. Unfortunately he forgot there was a street lamp right by the house so his plan kinna back fired lol

  • @apl175
    @apl175 4 года назад +165

    I remember at work we had a bunch of little green stickers that said "Y2K Hardware (BIOS) Compliant" that we put on all the tech equipment after we verified they were good to go for Y2K. I ended up putting them on all sorts of things at home: dishwasher, fridge, micro, doorbell, paper shredder, the cat, etc.

    • @djhenyo
      @djhenyo 4 года назад +3

      You're the first person that I've ever seen use "micro" as a nickname for microwave. I really hope you stop doing it. Five seconds of my life was wasted figuring that out just now. Please spare everybody else the trouble.

    • @BenGrem917
      @BenGrem917 4 года назад +14

      @@djhenyo And how much of your life did you waste typing this response? In your honor, I shall now always refer to microwave ovens as micros. (Not really).

    • @BrendonGreenNZL
      @BrendonGreenNZL 4 года назад +2

      @@djhenyo how can you be sure it wasn't "microcomputer"; an archaic name for that lump of metal and glass sitting on your desk?

    • @djhenyo
      @djhenyo 4 года назад +3

      @@BrendonGreenNZL In a pre-smart home appliance world, none of the things mentioned had any necessary relationship to a desktop or mobile computing device. Would you like me to figure out anything else for you?

    • @BrendonGreenNZL
      @BrendonGreenNZL 4 года назад +1

      @@djhenyo Haha, good one. That is what makes it so juicily ironic. Perhaps he had a microfiche in his study? 🤔

  • @adamdaminer1762
    @adamdaminer1762 4 года назад +281

    My dad and I were watching this over dinner, and he told me some stories about his time trying to prepare his computers at work for the Y2K bug. The thing is, he never got any recognition from it. The only people that got recognition from it were just people trying to scam you. So, my thanks goes out to everyone that actually worked on trying to prepare computers for the Y2K bug, and thank you dad. And thank you Clint for making this video, because my dad and I got to bond over something from his past and I got to here what it was like for him. :)

    • @bmurray942
      @bmurray942 4 года назад +2

      Adam Da Miner
      From Futurama: ruclips.net/video/edCqF_NtpOQ/видео.html

    • @emprsnm9903
      @emprsnm9903 4 года назад +4

      Thats cool! As a guy who was on the scene back then as well, he's right. Only management and their hired consultants got pats on the back for 'saving the company from the Y2K bugs'.
      There is a parallel in cyber-security consulting firms now days. Where only in the case of complete stupidity and negligence on the IT staff's part, can they provide any service to your company. But it still looks good on paper bringing them in and 'securing' the company's systems.

    • @bmurray942
      @bmurray942 4 года назад +5

      @@emprsnm9903 Wonderful how the system works isn't it? When something goes right the underlings are ignored and "management" gets the credit. When things go wrong the underlings get canned. When things REALLY go wrong, management MIGHT get canned but with a golden parachute.

    • @Gentleman...Driver
      @Gentleman...Driver 3 года назад

      Thats the case with every job. Nobody cares if you do something good and saving the company or more. But everyone will blame you on one mistake, even if it is very minor. lol

  • @LS3ftw15
    @LS3ftw15 4 года назад +36

    I love the nod to the 2038 Unix time overflow problem at the end there!
    I’ve been waiting ages for a new tech tales! This is such quality content!

    • @michaelbujaki2462
      @michaelbujaki2462 11 месяцев назад

      I know right? Good thing that there is an extra zero...

  • @mavrick45
    @mavrick45 4 года назад +173

    When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.

    • @oz_jones
      @oz_jones 4 года назад +4

      Monorail in Springfield comes to mind

    • @FeedMeMister
      @FeedMeMister 4 года назад

      @@oz_jones "but you didn't do anything!?"
      "oh, didn't I?"

    • @toddfraser3353
      @toddfraser3353 4 года назад +2

      One of my favorite Futurama quotes

  • @sevenfortyfour
    @sevenfortyfour 4 года назад +351

    Being a twelve year old kid at the time, and having been raised with computers, I remember deliberately changing the date to see what would happen. Nothing happened to Windows 98 and nothing happened to Mac OS 8.6. I was disappointed.

    • @mbob4337
      @mbob4337 4 года назад +34

      Did the same thing. And wondered why no one at these places did these tests on a small scale.

    • @pistool1
      @pistool1 4 года назад +10

      Same, I was 14 around Y2K. As a kid, I was wondering what the heck the acronym meant :D
      10:45 I remember those stickers, too, in my country :) Oh, those were the days of innocence.

    • @matthewrease2376
      @matthewrease2376 4 года назад +20

      *disappointed*
      "Aw man, I wanted dad's tax machine to stop working :("

    • @darran311
      @darran311 4 года назад +6

      Had a word processor which broke when we tried that the pc did fine though

    • @EuphoricBloodLust
      @EuphoricBloodLust 4 года назад +13

      likely because the relevant patches had been applied by the time you got around to testing it

  • @alexline4131
    @alexline4131 4 года назад +52

    I remember my friends on Neopets saying we all had to turn our computers off at midnight, being kids- we thought it was literally a computer virus, we were arguing about wither just unplugging the internet would work.

  • @dingdongbells3314
    @dingdongbells3314 4 года назад +197

    I like how some Tech Tales have this dark, gloomy, intro... but then when it's the world ending Y2K bug. It's just a jolly jazz filled romp. Ah, this one is actually a pretty nostalgic trip down memory lane. My parents didn't believe in Y2k, but we still spent New Year's Eve watching the ball drop from our basement and joking (maybe a bit nervously) about how it might end the world. Then when midnight came and went after the ball drop, we all went back up stairs and went to bed and slept peacefully, knowing the world didn't end. It really wasn't such a big deal after all.
    Edit: Perhaps I should clarify that this was just my sense at the time, blissfully unaware that programmers had invested an enormous number of hours into fixing programs to prevent Y2K from coming to fruition.

    • @Squonk06
      @Squonk06 4 года назад +2

      Something I've noticed about the series in general is that it tends toward the "failure" end of the "...inspiration, failure and everything in between" tagline. I'm sure this is dictated by the material, since the history of technology is volatile and thus full of meteoric rises followed by catastrophic blunders or gradual fading from relevance. Viewed in this light, the usual gloomy mood of the intro seems all the more appropriate.
      Still, I agree. It's nice to switch the mood up a bit, especially when juxtaposed against something widely billed as an impending disaster at the time.

    • @owenrichards1418
      @owenrichards1418 4 года назад +3

      It WAS a big deal. But the IT community knew what to do, got down to business and got it done in time. A problem averted is NOT a problem that never existed in the first place.

    • @Zack_Wester
      @Zack_Wester 4 года назад

      @@Squonk06 as he said it would been a disaster but we thought ahead for ones(albit we cut a bit close).
      and made sure to deal whit the problem before and not after it happen.
      its like changing the oil in the car before the car breaks down because oil is bad/gone.
      sadly there was a lot that did there best to sort of hype it like nukes flying it would not. at worst the nuke would not fire even if they tried. or correction the Targeting Computer would map everything back 100 years meaning they might be off target by a bit (its nukes so even then its probably not a concern) at worse.
      Sadly the Stockpiling just stopped when they found out nothing happend. we should had keep the stockpile prep trend going as it would help the country in other emergencies.
      like Unexpected snowstorm looking people in there home for a extensive amount of time.... Hope you got food for a few days until the Firefighter digs you out.

  • @georgeworley6927
    @georgeworley6927 4 года назад +193

    One of the earliest know Y2K related was in 1992 when the first Credit Card was issued with 01/00 as the expiry date. They were being rejected by the electronic approval devices at of the time. They had to be manually for almost a year.
    I worked for an Application as Service Provider at the time and because I was 3rd level tech support I had to work on New Years Eve 12/31/1999 just in case even though we tested and rested several times. The first time we tested in 1996 we had 495 of 500 servers crash. By the time 1990 rolled around we tested and had only one server that showed any sign of the issue which was an IBM OS2 server. The issue wasn't going away because IBM did not issue an Y2K update for OS/2 so the BIOS recognized the year 2000 the OS didn't. We couldn't test our fixes so it did fail originally however nothing really happened. Since the OS/2 program and source code was licensed to us we were able to put a fix into the code a later. The OS showed the incorrect date however the fix made the program see the right date.
    The funnest Y2K story was in my favorite restaurant. Their cash registers for the year 2000 displayed 19000 as the first 2 digits of the date was hard-coded as 19. They kept the registers for 4 years after Y2K. So when the year was 2000 the registers printed 19000 on the receipt. When the year was 2001 the date that was printed 20001. If the register was still in today, the year would be 19020.
    Rev George

    • @AmyraCarter
      @AmyraCarter 4 года назад +17

      Reminds me of that one shovelware game Gemini of Pixelmusement covered that showed the date as '19119' in the high score table, lolz

    • @georgeworley6927
      @georgeworley6927 4 года назад +22

      @jshowa o thank you. It sometimes makes me feel angry even 20 years after the fact that a lot of people thinks that the Y2K Bug was hoax when there were 1000s of IT professionals that put in lots of hours debugging code to prevent it from happening. I blame the media for ths.
      Rev George

    • @alexc3504
      @alexc3504 4 года назад +1

      Thanks for sharing!

    • @GleidsonTseva
      @GleidsonTseva 4 года назад +4

      I never thought that the bug was already a problem in 1992. I was just a kid and it went completely unnoticed by me. Thanks for sharing this information.

    • @emprsnm9903
      @emprsnm9903 4 года назад +6

      @@georgeworley6927 I think the 'hoax' mindset comes from the media's fear mongering as well. Lots of people collectively pooled uncountable hours into adjusting the code over the years prior to Y2K. But then, all of a sudden, it was almost armageddon.
      Bah, due diligence was done before the media even considered it a story. It was a thing, it had to be dealt with, and it was. Yet the media had people in a panic, unfoundedly. And hucksters were cashing in on it big time. In the end alot of people were embarrassed, some were rich, and the ones who did the hard work only made salary, in addition to maybe having received a pep talk from their managers once or twice.

  • @BokBarber
    @BokBarber 4 года назад +117

    Good thing people have this example to learn from. I feel great knowing that we'll never have a major issue ignored and underfunded by institutions for years, followed by the problem happening after all, followed by a cycle of media hysteria about the looming problem, followed by a large reactionary response by people and governments, followed by the response actually mitigating the problem, followed by people claiming that the whole problem was a hoax because we never went to doomsday.

    • @grimrot
      @grimrot 2 года назад +3

      You're kidding... right?

    • @k-leb4671
      @k-leb4671 2 года назад +5

      @@grimrot What do you think?

    • @MGlBlaze
      @MGlBlaze 2 года назад +4

      Yep, definitely never to be reapeated. Certainly never in the computer space specifically; we definitely don't have a problem with, say, time being stored as "seconds that have passed since X date" and that time being a 32-bit integer that will run out of space in, say, 2038.

    • @jessehill9993
      @jessehill9993 Год назад

      We will repeat that in another 20 years with COVID-20 and SARS 3!

    • @thedangboi7198
      @thedangboi7198 Год назад +1

      yeah
      that will never happen again

  • @noobiesmurf
    @noobiesmurf 4 года назад +176

    Computer programmers in the 1960s - this won't be in use in 40 years don't worry about it.
    Also computer programmer in the year 2000 - this won't be in use in the year 2020 don't worry about it.

    • @haraberu
      @haraberu 4 года назад +49

      And coming up next: The 2038 bug, when we reach the end of 32-bit binary dates.

    • @alexsilva28
      @alexsilva28 4 года назад +18

      @@haraberu The conclusion to the epic trilogy

    • @badlydrawncars6460
      @badlydrawncars6460 4 года назад +6

      @Johnny5clowna You're forgetting lots of embedded systems.

    • @roundduckkira
      @roundduckkira 4 года назад +7

      @Johnny5clowna 32-bit time, not 32- bit OSes.
      Unix uses 32-bit time and hence where the issue comes from

    • @awilliams1701
      @awilliams1701 4 года назад

      @@haraberu I would hope everyone has 64 bit machines by now. I think 64 bit dates back 17 years and mainstream for 14. Then again..........sigh.....

  • @alewiina
    @alewiina 4 года назад +115

    I was 14 when Y2K happened and I remember the insanity, people losing their damn minds. My parents did buy a generator, and we stocked up a bit of canned food and water just in case. I distinctly remember thinking "Oh, I guess it wasn't a problem afterall" when nothing happened. I think it's criminal that the media didn't turn around and applaud the programmers that fixed everything as heroes, instead of pretending it was all a big sham. I didn't even know it had actually been a problem and there were tons of people working furiously on it until I saw a comment from one of the programmers on a forum last year. Honestly the media is such a trainwreck most of the time, it's ridiculous.
    Thanks for this video!! It was very interesting! :)

    • @ParappatheRapper
      @ParappatheRapper 4 года назад +14

      Being negative always seems to get better views than being positive. If they can spin a story either way, they'll choose negativity every time. Really wish it weren't so.

    • @tripodranger7873
      @tripodranger7873 4 года назад +9

      @@ParappatheRapper People like getting mad, or rather, people like feeling that they're admonishing the wicked. The media loves to play into that.

    • @kiowastew
      @kiowastew 4 года назад +2

      I particularly liked (read as disliked) how the media also turned around the next day and said, "Well, nothing went wrong today, but the ACTUAL threat is going to occur over the next 2 weeks as computers previously shutdown are turned back on. We are not out of danger yet." I can remember rolling my eyes and turning off the TV.

    • @4.0.4
      @4.0.4 4 года назад +3

      Journalists are, in general, dishonest parasites with no integrity. The world will be better off when public trust on the press drops closer to 0%.

    • @VoidHalo
      @VoidHalo 4 года назад +2

      I was the same age in 1999, too. I always figured it was a non-issue and there was either no problem to begin with, or the problem was blown out of proportion. It wasn't until some time between 2010 and 2015 that I learned of the countless people who worked their asses off around the clock to make sure nothing happened. Truly unsung heroes.

  • @video99couk
    @video99couk 4 года назад +3

    I worked in a semiconductor manufacturing plant, where in 1998 we scrapped our PDP/11 which was acting as a kind of server for old semiconductor testers. The (unsupported) software was not Y2K compliant. It's not like we didn't know if it was compliant, or that it might have all be OK on the day, or a reboot after 2000 would probably fix it. No, it was just plain not going to work. So it was that many of the problems were resolved in advance, by buying new equipment. You'll be glad to know that I carefully dismantled the PDP/11 and had it sent to a collector, I hope it's still running now.

  • @SoleaGalilei
    @SoleaGalilei 4 года назад +139

    In the late 90s my then-girlfriend's father was one of the Cobol programmers brought out of retirement for Y2K. He had to fix a bank computer system he'd worked on in the 60s.

    • @nthgth
      @nthgth 3 года назад +8

      My parents worked on Cobol too and were hard at work fixing things, but the details are fuzzy because I was 11

  • @niamaru2
    @niamaru2 4 года назад +33

    Being one of those worker that worked on fixing COBOL systems for y2k, I appreciate the light you are shining on this

  • @jennw6809
    @jennw6809 4 года назад +41

    "And while it's being fixed, we might even enjoy some family time."
    Truer words were never spoken, but applied to 20 years later.

    • @fordshojoe8080
      @fordshojoe8080 3 года назад +7

      Family time? What the hell is that? Is that some kinda app I can download? Is it a new social network?
      Yupp it's called looking up putting device down and moving the muscles in your mouth

    • @kaledmarrero1011
      @kaledmarrero1011 3 года назад

      @@fordshojoe8080 Stupid tech nerd, always don’t know the real life as a OS.

  • @andycooper537
    @andycooper537 4 года назад +307

    I remember finding emergency y2k compliant water in discount bins in 2001.

    • @5roundsrapid263
      @5roundsrapid263 4 года назад +42

      I found a VHS tape about Y2K in a bargain bin in 2004!

    • @ccricers
      @ccricers 4 года назад +26

      Gotta stay hydrated

    • @ReshiLuna
      @ReshiLuna 4 года назад +9

      Wait... really? Lol..

    • @robertreid-8-bit-guy635
      @robertreid-8-bit-guy635 4 года назад +1

      *w a t e r*

    • @jackh3570
      @jackh3570 4 года назад +3

      @ShaunDoesMusic GMO is genuine issue though

  • @cassandralyris4918
    @cassandralyris4918 4 года назад +231

    Life goal: guest voice for LGR.

    • @W4TRI_Ronny
      @W4TRI_Ronny 4 года назад +2

      Me Too! Heard about 3 in there I knew!

    • @Raguleader
      @Raguleader 4 года назад

      Alternative life goal: Be centrally involved in a topic LGR talks about.
      Maybe unless it's a cautionary tale I guess.

  • @skyserpent14
    @skyserpent14 4 года назад +17

    I tried including the Y2K scare in a timeline of historical events that happened after I was born, as assigned by my U.S. History class, but my high school teacher wouldn't accept it by his account that "It was just a scare. Nothing actually happened!"

  • @ampinstein
    @ampinstein 4 года назад +29

    I was working for a large insurance company back then and we put in a lot of hours testing and patching systems in late 1999, so it's nice that this video will help rid the notion that it was a hoax. Thank you.

  • @KrisRatliff75
    @KrisRatliff75 4 года назад +12

    Thank you for the video LGR!! Ah, memories. I remember my uncle being really worried about it. So much so that he bought Y2K ISA cards for his computers (despite my insistence they weren't necessary). My uncle's fear wasn't unwarranted as he came from the world of 2-digit year mainframes and punch-cards and didn't see an easy way for those systems to be upgraded. I was working as an independent IT contractor in '99 and everyone I knew kept asking me if there would be issues. I told everyone there was 0% chance of catastrophic failure, but there might be some minor issues (like CC transactions, the video rental fee issue you mentioned in the video) and other oddities related. In my mind I knew this, but there was still a small lingering doubt. Thankfully, it all worked out.

  • @mulad
    @mulad 4 года назад +182

    Y2K stories always remind me that the localtime() function in Perl was updated to return the number of years since 1900 rather than a 2-digit year. The year value was often appended to "19" rather than added to 1900, so the Yahoo! homepage (which used Perl) briefly showed the date January 1, 19100.

    • @bb010g
      @bb010g 4 года назад +8

      Gotta love Perl.

    • @raycearcher5794
      @raycearcher5794 4 года назад +24

      In the grim, dark future of the 20th millennium, there is only Perl

    • @YourUNKus
      @YourUNKus 4 года назад +8

      Nerd that I am, I was watching the U.S. Naval Observatory master time clock webpage on that new year and upon refreshing the page at midnight was surprised to see exactly what you describe. Not sure how long before it was fixed but I have to laugh after viewing this vid seeing how much the gov spent and on top of that of all places for it to happen - the "master clock" . Wonder if any other "time keeping" facilities had the same issue.

    • @danieldaniels7571
      @danieldaniels7571 4 года назад +3

      I remember quite a few things that showed the year as 19100, and even using some programs that did until 19101

    • @TravisTev
      @TravisTev 4 года назад +5

      I remember back in the day that the original version of Windows 3.1 File Manager would show the year 2000 as “19:0”, which is technically a variation of this type of bug (trying to display the number 100 in two digits, with the tens digit of the year overflowing from “9” to the ASCII character that happened to be one higher, “:”). Around that time, Microsoft had an update to File Manager available on its site to correct the problem and display years above 1999 correctly.

  • @davidinark
    @davidinark 4 года назад +31

    Nicely done. You present various sides of the y2k issue. As an Xer, I was an IT director during that time and somewhere is a document with my signature in the bowels of state bureaucracy on it certifying that our systems were y2k-compliant. We tested various systems with a gamut of results. Some systems were fine, some had minor glitches, and others failed completely. Had we not done the work, mission critical systems would have failed, because before the fixes, they did fail. There was definitely a lot of fear and intimidation being thrown around for sure, though.

  • @shottysteve
    @shottysteve 2 года назад +5

    i was scoffing at tony parker, thinking what an idiot he was, at 15:58 before realizing that you had people voice these forum posts! just another example of when something is done right, its hard to its easy to overlook the work that went into it. great production haha

  • @daddlertl3
    @daddlertl3 4 года назад +165

    The message from Modern Vintage Gamer should have been: "Mistakes were made: how two digit year numbers affected computer systems" :P

    • @PJBonoVox
      @PJBonoVox 4 года назад +7

      @@mayshack Yep.

  • @basedhalcyon
    @basedhalcyon 4 года назад +86

    I need a Y2K gun, that sounds like a Dreamcast peripheral

  • @calamaria9221
    @calamaria9221 4 года назад +26

    Lol imagine your game having 2020 in the title and it breaks when it's actually 2020.

  • @dan_loup
    @dan_loup 4 года назад +60

    I think this bug was important to inform the public how much they actually depended on computers.

    • @Canleaf08
      @Canleaf08 4 года назад +1

      Now with IoT and other stuff, where EVERYTHING is just interconnected, it has become so relevant. Now it is an nonissue. Most coding langs encountered no longer store years as YY, but as YYYY.

  • @theR1ddle
    @theR1ddle 4 года назад +109

    10:28 Love how that MS year 2000 resource cd has "April 1st" printed in bold black print on the bottom! I can't help but think that they did that on purpose!

  • @SpiffingNZ
    @SpiffingNZ 4 года назад +23

    I remember in Y2K my Windows 95 computer just reset its clock back to 1980.

  • @tammysilverwolf1085
    @tammysilverwolf1085 4 года назад +72

    I was living in San Diego when I first heard about this, and I remember reading a Computer Resource magazine that was like 'consider this- the world doesn't end but data will be shifted just slightly and we'll wind up with tiny errors that compound over decades- in the far off year of 2020, this fictional company will realize the entire market is bankrupt and has been for years.
    That was such a fun time, just thinking about stuff like that even if I never bought into it, it was a fun (and mildly unsettling) concept.

  • @GammaMAXXdotcom
    @GammaMAXXdotcom 4 года назад +143

    "It's HIS fault: One person 'invented' Y2K, and he's David Eddy"
    Damn, that's brutal. Printed in The Boston Globe for everyone to see

    • @Overcrox
      @Overcrox 4 года назад +1

      How dare he!

    • @ChozoSR388
      @ChozoSR388 4 года назад +27

      Heah, the media is literally comprised of wolves and barbarians. They don't give a crap who they hurt in the process, as long their story gets publicity. They're like the troubled kid in class; even bad attention is attention they didn't initially have.

    • @inspectorlunge3887
      @inspectorlunge3887 4 года назад +1

      It sounds more like the boston globe's fault, ironically. The writer's just creating a scapegoat.

    • @maurofoti526
      @maurofoti526 4 года назад +5

      Isn't that defamation? I mean, I'm prettu sure that a newspaper cannot just say this kind of things and wash their hands

  • @manonthedollar
    @manonthedollar 6 месяцев назад +4

    I miss these Tech Tales brah bring em baaaack

  • @ZeR0goth
    @ZeR0goth 4 года назад +81

    So many familar voices 😊 I love how the RUclips tech and gaming community is so tightly knit. Good video lgr. This video just makes me want to go to a convention on day in hopes of meeting a few

  • @thomasfuchs78
    @thomasfuchs78 4 года назад +94

    I was employed as a enterprise software programmer at the time and we spend months updating client’s databases and software to fix this, including stuff like billing systems of large utility companies.
    The bug was very real but most software was fixed in time.

    • @ruhtraeel
      @ruhtraeel 4 года назад +1

      whoever decided to store dates in an abbreviated format in their DB should have a stern talking to

    • @lmaoroflcopter
      @lmaoroflcopter 4 года назад +21

      @@ruhtraeel that would be very very typical prior to the early 90s. Memory was not infinite and if you could save a few bytes on a date field, you absolutely would do so.

    • @DocNo27
      @DocNo27 4 года назад +2

      @@ruhtraeel Your really gonna love this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem

    • @ruhtraeel
      @ruhtraeel 4 года назад +2

      ​@@lmaoroflcopter You're over-exaggerating it. According to this link, the average hard drive of a computer in 1995 is 1GB: www.relativelyinteresting.com/comparing-todays-computers-to-1995s/
      A "Datetime" field in Oracle SQL is 7 bytes (it even includes seconds). You could store 142 million dates in a single hard drive. A mainframe server probably has thousands of these hard drives.
      So there would be little to no benefit in abbreviating it on the DB level.
      If you were loading it into memory as part of your backend business logic (which according to that link, had an average CONSUMER PC having 8 megabytes of RAM), you could load over 1 million dates into memory (but you would NEVER need to load so many dates into memory; you would page it like a logical person)
      So unless you're constrained by using possibly pre-1950s hardware, a software company in the 1990s shouldn't have any excuse in abbreviating dates outside of their frontend.

    • @ruhtraeel
      @ruhtraeel 4 года назад

      @@rjz2 I'm not sure what "you still had to read the files that were written by the older software" means. If you're reading files as inputs into your backend business logic, that's no longer using a database (in which case, OP's comment would be inaccurate when he says "updating clients' databases"). Basically, if they were using a database at all, it was most likely using one of these standards SQL-86, SQL-89, SQL-92, SQL:1999, etc.

  • @jwillisbarrie
    @jwillisbarrie 4 года назад +1

    Appreciate the captions for the Deaf that are actual captions, not automatic with errors. Found your channel via comment on David's channel The 8 bit guy

  • @Mr.Plant1994
    @Mr.Plant1994 4 года назад +84

    I still have my Y2K cyber pal. It’s a plushy and his name is crash. He came with a little blurb that said. If this Y2K Snaafoo has got you in a bugaboo, you can drop me on my bottom just for laughs. He makes a crash sound.

    • @Matt92Machine
      @Matt92Machine 4 года назад +4

      Cody Plant That’s probably worth something.

    • @AmyraCarter
      @AmyraCarter 4 года назад +4

      Oh yes, those silly little noise stuffies are quite fun, lolz (and sooo 90's)

    • @alewiina
      @alewiina 4 года назад +4

      I had one too!! I think he got lost over the years but I distinctly remember the crashing noise it made!

  • @AnneIglesias
    @AnneIglesias 4 года назад +226

    Ugh, this channel never fails to remind me how old I am. I remember being a preteen and getting preached about Y2K by my cousin. He used my grandfather’s Windows 3.1x to demonstrate.

    • @jamescrow4915
      @jamescrow4915 4 года назад +11

      And those windows 3.x machines seem to be clicking along just fine

    • @idova
      @idova 4 года назад +45

      you think this makes you feel old, i was a COBOL programmer working on Y2K issues for BUPA and Norwich Union

    • @TedSeeber
      @TedSeeber 4 года назад +6

      @@jamescrow4915 I remember installing the patch in 1992

    • @jamescrow4915
      @jamescrow4915 4 года назад +16

      @@idova dont worry plenty of COBOL programmers were mutually shitting bricks while racing time and wondering what new programming language to learn from here after the fixes were in place

    • @jamescrow4915
      @jamescrow4915 4 года назад +2

      @@TedSeeber naturally after all the 3.x series was supported and even distributed thru till 2001 they had to find a fix

  • @heavyaccept
    @heavyaccept 3 года назад +13

    Yeah, I was in high school back in the end of the 90's, and I remember we were having this discussion in the IT class labs. We were using PC's with Windows 95 & 98 back then!
    P.S.: They say that the next problem will be on year 2038, because 32bit systems will run out of... memory bits, while counting the seconds...

  • @scruffythejanitor1969
    @scruffythejanitor1969 4 года назад +42

    So I work for a financial software company, and the stuff you see in Office Space actually happened. Anyone with a hint of technical knowledge spent a good portion of the 18 months before the crash going through code print outs line by line searching for any dates, then going into the code and fixing it. Everything line of code had to be reviewed twice, and even the fixes (which were still on terminals) had to be approved before they were submitted.
    And honestly, it's not too surprising that the code lasted that long. You'd be amazed at how much of the world is still coded in COBOL or a close descendant. Security and information transfer protocols have developed quite a bit (obviously), but a lot of the raw information is in a reliable old COBOL format.

    • @solidstate0
      @solidstate0 4 года назад +3

      Just remember not having to just fix the code, but also having to write data file conversion routines to accommodate the extra 2 bytes

  • @aaronbrown4275
    @aaronbrown4275 4 года назад +93

    The weirdest comment going to BrutalMoose was perfect.

  • @hoangtran4736
    @hoangtran4736 4 года назад +13

    that 32 bit -unsigned- signed unix time stamp foreshadowing is absolute gold.

    • @rwsrwsrwt
      @rwsrwsrwt 2 года назад

      To cause the "year 2038 problem" the timestamp must be treated as a 32 bit *signed* integer…
      0x7FFFFFFF = Jan 19 2038 03:14:07
      0x80000000 = Dec 13 1901 20:45:52
      If it is treated as a 32 bit *unsigned* integer the overflow would occur in the year 2106…
      0xFFFFFFFF = Feb 07 2106 06:28:15
      0x00000000 = Jan 01 1970 00:00:00

    • @absmustang
      @absmustang Год назад

      you probably meant signed. but yes, gold

  • @thefenrisianssweatshop
    @thefenrisianssweatshop 4 года назад +101

    I was 19 back then and I remember the fuss the bbc made. I’d not long enlisted in the army. My old CO would say “we aren’t being mobilised. I wouldn’t worry bout sh**” turns out he was right. 🤣

  • @hedgehog3180
    @hedgehog3180 4 года назад +35

    The problem really started when you got people completely outside the tech industry getting involved in this whole thing and making wild claims.

  • @ferociousgumby
    @ferociousgumby 4 года назад +21

    I remember seeing a big bin of Y2K books in my local book store at the start of 2000. Not many takers.

    • @HR-wd6cw
      @HR-wd6cw 4 года назад +1

      I think at the local library I remember seeing some books on HOw to prepare for Y2K. They might want to consider just throwing those away.

  • @TheHylianJuggalo
    @TheHylianJuggalo 4 года назад +130

    That 'clock error' thing happens all the time every 10 years. At the start of this year, I went to a bar to celebrate with the drunks,, and the 'I.D.' clock said you had to be born before 1918 to drink.

    • @wta1518
      @wta1518 4 года назад +4

      Um AFTER?!?!?!

    • @TheHylianJuggalo
      @TheHylianJuggalo 4 года назад +7

      @@wta1518 Yes and while that can potentially be any year, when those types of clocks show up it specifies the exact date that someone would be 21.

    • @TheRealColBosch
      @TheRealColBosch 4 года назад +2

      Well, I mean, it's *technically* true.

    • @wta1518
      @wta1518 4 года назад +2

      TheHylianJuggalo no, of you were born AFTER a 1999 (if it was 2020) you would be UNDER 21.

    • @TheHylianJuggalo
      @TheHylianJuggalo 4 года назад +3

      @@wta1518 Yes and my point was that it was it read 1918, not 1998

  • @purplepeak8575
    @purplepeak8575 4 года назад +182

    There's probably someone out there still in a Y2K shelter to this day.

    • @Kevin_2435
      @Kevin_2435 4 года назад +45

      Their 20 year stash of food as about to run out. They'll emerge from their 20 year prison and realize that the world didn't actually end. What a horrible day for them. 🤣

    • @hambergorlhelper
      @hambergorlhelper 4 года назад +8

      this is funny to think about 😂

    • @CompComp
      @CompComp 4 года назад +20

      Wasn't there a movie like this? It may have been about the cold war though.
      A couple went into their bunker and the wife went into labor as soon as the hatch closed. On his 20th birthday he gets to be the first one on the surface only to find nothing happened.

    • @gilangrr21
      @gilangrr21 4 года назад +12

      @@CompComp "Blast from the Past" is the title of the movie

    • @Befuddled_Ostrich
      @Befuddled_Ostrich 4 года назад +11

      @@CompComp Sounds like you're thinking of the movie 'Blast From the Past' with Brendan Fraser, Alicia Silverstone, and Christopher Walken.

  • @jagardina
    @jagardina 4 года назад +11

    Fantastic use of voice talent, I recognized most of them.
    I worked through Y2k in IT working in Hong Kong for a bank. It was ridiculous but there were other things at play. It led directly to a huge depression in tech stocks and tech business in the years following.

    • @georgeoldsterd8994
      @georgeoldsterd8994 2 года назад

      Aha! So _that's_ where the conspiracy really was!

    • @daleva187goligo
      @daleva187goligo 9 месяцев назад +1

      the first one was norman, the gaming historian, who's not british at all

  • @Daz555Daz
    @Daz555Daz 4 года назад +26

    Whilst I earned a nice stash as contractor leading up to Y2K, 99% of the work I did was completely necessary to avert massive systems failures in some fairly critical IT systems.

    • @oz_jones
      @oz_jones 4 года назад +4

      Thanks. You did good.

  • @heartgenerator4967
    @heartgenerator4967 4 года назад +15

    Of the many Y2K breakdowns and history videos I've seen, this is the best, so much detail, so much information, direct quotes, excellent Clint, tech tales is your best series by far

  • @commandozambo7867
    @commandozambo7867 4 года назад +47

    "Electricity may be broken" god i love this line

    • @analcommando1124
      @analcommando1124 3 года назад +7

      Beware of self-aware electrons that will go insane due to a calendar change.

    • @ScorpionCar
      @ScorpionCar 3 года назад +6

      "And you what? Actually we can enjoy some family time"

    • @YukaTakeuchiFan
      @YukaTakeuchiFan 2 года назад

      @@analcommando1124 Hey, how do you think we got Dr. Proton, Mister Smartypants?

  • @LegendBegins
    @LegendBegins 4 года назад +20

    I love the voice clips! Great overview of Y2K!
    Side note: Awesome hint at the 2038 bug coverage. Looking forward to that one!

  • @bayareanewman1566
    @bayareanewman1566 4 года назад +138

    Did you actually have one of those Y2K BIOS cards? I would totally love to see one of those puppies in action! Bonus if you can find a copy of a BIOS that actually wasn’t Y2K compliant, and see what this card actually did, how it worked. Was it a scam, or did it actually change some file in the BIOS... anyways GREAT VIDEO!

    • @ZAX27171527
      @ZAX27171527 4 года назад +21

      I would like to see this as well! That would be interesting!

    • @laharl2k
      @laharl2k 4 года назад +3

      From the picture it looks like a eeprom on a isa card, like the ones youd use to install the xt ide bios on your old pc.
      I dont expect much, its surely a scam, but id love to see a dump of that chips. Maybe they left a secret message inside for the computer savvy. So dear god LGR please make a video about it!

    • @CompComp
      @CompComp 4 года назад +5

      If anything it was probably the 2020 stop gap that he mentions in this video.

    • @NoxiousPluK
      @NoxiousPluK 4 года назад +6

      I remember having a floppy disk that patched some MS-DOS versions to have a pivot date of 2020 if your BIOS didn't support 4-digit years.

    • @EricGrain
      @EricGrain 4 года назад +10

      That card absolutely *must* be in a future LGR Oddware Video! 🤣 I really hope to see some more details on it from LGR

  • @lizzychrome7630
    @lizzychrome7630 10 месяцев назад +2

    I have to compliment and thank you for how you speak in this video. I had to turn another one off because the speaker was so obnoxiously trying to stretch out his runtime with awkward, stilted, repetitive narration. Your narration on the other hand was smoth and easy on the ears, as well as entertaining. No saliva sloshing around on the microphone either, which means a lot to those of us with sensory issues.

  • @jakestocker4854
    @jakestocker4854 4 года назад +25

    Hope this is a sign of more Tech Tales to come for 2020. They're my favorite.

  • @JamesPotts
    @JamesPotts 4 года назад +250

    I took a COBOL class as "insurance" at college, and wound up getting hired as a student programmer and patching thousands of programs.

    • @carlab994
      @carlab994 4 года назад +17

      I've heard it's a great investment as someone will need to replace the programmers that retire, and changing banking systems is still a huge hassle. I had COBOL in my programming course but my object-oriented brain didn't enjoy it.

    • @JamesPotts
      @JamesPotts 4 года назад +15

      @@carlab994 you just need object oriented COBOL. It's called "add 1 to COBOL giving COBOL".
      Explanation for those who are fortunate enough to not know or have forgotten COBOL: that's valid syntax for incrementing a variable named COBOL, like incrementing C via C++.

    • @JamesPotts
      @JamesPotts 4 года назад +10

      @@carlab994 it was a handy investment for me. I dropped out of grad school, and immediately had a job, while I figured out what I wanted to do. Only did it for a year, before getting a "real" job as a software engineer, but having reasonable pay/benefits during that year was wonderful.

    • @pseudocoder78
      @pseudocoder78 4 года назад +3

      @@JamesPotts The best jokes are the ones you have to explain!

    • @nocelebrity6042
      @nocelebrity6042 4 года назад +3

      @@JamesPotts I've heard COBOL was self explanatory to some degree (that might not be the exact programming term).
      But I used to work at a place that had an inventory database program written in COBOL.
      One of the janky "features" it had were data tables containing two or more different types of data. The COBOL system filtered the records automatically, but the Pervasive SQL bridge (for exporting and interfacing with modern accounting/office programs) did not.
      I recall having to read those tables into an Access database, and knock off weird characters or leading spaces, because those extra characters meant a record was for tracking a different piece of data. That was not fun. I asked the IT repair guy about that, and he just said "yeah, it's just something you see in COBOL data tables."

  • @overlord3051
    @overlord3051 4 года назад +10

    I was rather young when Y2K happened, with a computer that I had since the mid-90s. I recall my friends telling me about how it wasn't going to work anymore, and that I needed a special chip to keep it working.

  • @bluehatguy4279
    @bluehatguy4279 4 года назад +66

    I was doing tech support in the Air Force during the Y2k scare. We really weren't all that worried at my squadron, but we were more than happy to accept some new PCs to leapfrog us from 386 all the way to Pentium 2.

    • @tamekkaknuth9612
      @tamekkaknuth9612 2 года назад

      Yeah . And tell my brother Dave I said hi asshole!! How's making me unhappy feeling toward you again!! And losing me again after you know what you did!! You live eternally with that guilt and lies that you sold to. Remember my fema x mobile home for $89,000?? Go to Atlanta Georgia or better new community shelter and take bed. 302 C with your add medication.

    • @tamekkaknuth9612
      @tamekkaknuth9612 2 года назад

      You got your Christmas wish and prayers too from the minute I was born a long with All the chokeholds and couldn't stand to see me happy. Never protected me didn't care. How's the CIA treating you in a different level?? You only wanted what you wanted and didn't care I was literally happy. Only about money with your same old lies. How's the sheriff on the left with my brother on the right doing?

    • @tamekkaknuth9612
      @tamekkaknuth9612 2 года назад

      Hi-Tech Institute Radiology Brooklyn center or park?? I get them switched around. Leave tamekka the f*ck alone. Damage is done?!! Trust is broken and non-existence . You're to blame for the pain doctor and psychiatric medications etc . Glad your laughing about cuz tamekka does not. How does it feel to be in Milwaukee and know I'm dead inside in a relationship I fought my way outta to just end back up feeling and looking exactly how you treated me before dec. 2022

    • @tamekkaknuth9612
      @tamekkaknuth9612 2 года назад

      Good old Facebook and social media. Jokes on you now. And your to blame. You bet my life on it literally. Nice!! How your happy now. Noones protecting you!! Oh, and thxs for getting me evicted by brown county sheriff etc. And my Nissan rogue. Good luck. Your spiritually dead

  • @Schming
    @Schming 4 года назад +17

    Always love playing 'spot the voice' when my favourite tech channels collaborate

  • @capybara5494
    @capybara5494 7 месяцев назад +4

    Man i miss Tech Tales so much

  • @bumvie
    @bumvie 4 года назад +14

    One of my favorite lgr.s in recent years. Informative and entertaining as always.
    You made one day of a random person a bit nicer! Keep up the good work mate!

  • @buranflakes
    @buranflakes 4 года назад +31

    I'm too young to remember Y2K but a couple years ago I got a neat Y2K snowglobe depicting a 90s PC exploding and featuring 1s and 0s as the snow. It now sits on my retro PC game shelf next to my retro PC setup.

    • @llouie4999
      @llouie4999 4 года назад +3

      That is so awesome. It was even better than I envisioned when I searched for an image. Thank you for sharing buranflakes!

    • @kiruppert
      @kiruppert 4 года назад +1

      Oh man. I wish I had one of those.

    • @darknesskingsized8996
      @darknesskingsized8996 4 года назад

      The black and white one or the coloured one?

    • @CanuckGod
      @CanuckGod 4 года назад

      It was pretty uneventful, though I only started caring about noon on Jan. 1/00, as 21 year old me was quite hung over from the previous night's partying... In any event, I searched for that snow globe, and now I'm jealous 😆

    • @buranflakes
      @buranflakes 4 года назад

      @@darknesskingsized8996 It has a beige PC with a rainbow screen showing the date on it

  • @robertjones3223
    @robertjones3223 4 года назад +7

    Great video being IT professional who started his career fixing the Y2K bug, its nice to see someone admit it was real issue, but we must remember this example humans proving they can fix things and make world better when working together

  • @jaymartinmobile
    @jaymartinmobile 4 года назад +50

    It was real, and being one of the programmers and systems analysts that had to fix the problems I can tell you about a few of them. I won't get into much here and I can't tell you specifics due to non-disclosure agreements, but I can say that one well-know very large retail "mart" chain used computers that were old enough to be susceptible to the Y2K bug for their "just-in-time" ordering system. What was done to keep running when it was apparent that a fix was not going to be ready on Jan 1st? Well a bank of more modern PC's were stood up as translation machines. These machines translated the current dates into a legacy date system so the mainframe kept running. This allowed the ordering system to continue working until the problems were resolved around September, 2000. I had to work that night overtime just in case something went wrong. The temporary fix worked and orders continued to be processed. What the public didn't know was that the PC's were hastily built, and while responding as though they were the mainframe, they were not actually checking that the responses were valid. At about 15 minutes after midnight I decided to test something and logged in to the system with the user Mickey Mouse and password Goofy. It let me on with no complaint and then let me process an order for 1 million boxes of Puffs Plus which I cancelled before the process was complete. Had the public known anything about this one of the biggest retailers in the world could have been totally screwed while some jerk went moving product to stores that didn't need it or cancelling orders that were in process. Y2K was a triumph of our ingenuity to solve a problem, but oh what the public didn't know.

  • @BanCorporateOwnedHouses
    @BanCorporateOwnedHouses 4 года назад +27

    Damn, Clint really went out of his way to get a cameo from every retro tech RUclipsr I know.

  • @JustMeBubba
    @JustMeBubba 4 года назад +20

    I remember my friend and I on New Years eve 1999. We went to the basement and waited for the countdown and then I hit the main breaker for the house. The screaming and panic that went on was great!!
    Then someone looked outside and seen the street lights on LOL Good times :D

  • @discordinc
    @discordinc 4 года назад +12

    I forgot about a lot of the Y2K histeria. Thanks for making such an informative video. I really love the Tech Tales series

  • @KORIBLADE100
    @KORIBLADE100 4 года назад +82

    "Never underestimate the power of public panic", hearing that during the coronavirus situation hits extra hard

    • @alhuno1
      @alhuno1 4 года назад +1

      Good point

  • @eclipsedbadger
    @eclipsedbadger 4 года назад +95

    "they got Nimoy hooked for a documentary"
    Bold of you to asume that he didn't ran into that studio ready for action. Nimoy really liked documentary work or anything culture-related.
    wouldn't shock me he was waiting for that call... LOL

    • @MistaMaddog247
      @MistaMaddog247 4 года назад +15

      He also did a show called "In Search Of.." which was about the possibility of supernatural stuff. There's a remake of it now narriated by Zachary Quinto...who also played Spock.

    • @Raguleader
      @Raguleader 4 года назад +9

      @@MistaMaddog247 And an infomercial for the Magnavox Magnavision Laserdisc player. The mustache must be seen to be believed.
      Similarly, William Shatner did lots of promotional work too, like being a spokesperson for Commodore Business Machines and their VIC-20 home computer.

    • @danieldaniels7571
      @danieldaniels7571 4 года назад +1

      Raguleader I love that infomercial. Nimoy talking to the pulsing rock is classic. I actually have one of those players, too.

    • @dacypher22
      @dacypher22 4 года назад +3

      I think he means because it was a Y2K scare piece. He definitely wouldn't be my first pick to see in something like that.

    • @RCAvhstape
      @RCAvhstape 3 года назад +1

      I really wish Nimoy was still around and do a retro-style of In Search Of episode: "Y2K: Fact or Myth" complete with 70s grainy film and sound track.

  • @brokenacoustic
    @brokenacoustic 4 года назад +35

    1:57 Funny that even back in 99 people were already complaining about technology interfering with actual human interaction.
    Cant believe this was 20 years ago already...man I feel old lol

    • @brandchan
      @brandchan 4 года назад +10

      I mean it has been going on forever. Having books and writing stuff down will make us more forgetful. Having phones in our homes will make us have less "actual" social interaction and loss of privacy. It goes on and on.

    • @daisymae3717
      @daisymae3717 4 года назад +8

      I read an article back when the printing press was invented and for the first time books were avalible for everyone and newspapers became a thing and old people were talking about how reading was going to ruin human interaction. Its amazing how little things have changed.

    • @BlueBoxRevan
      @BlueBoxRevan 4 года назад

      I hear that

  • @hkoizumi3134
    @hkoizumi3134 4 года назад +12

    I vividly remember Y2K. I was playing Age of Empires 2 all night and I missed the new year countdown.

    • @daleva187goligo
      @daleva187goligo 9 месяцев назад

      for whatever stupid reason I watched the local news for the countdown that year instead of the usual new york delayed feed, I'm in ca... I watched two old fogies blow those party whistle things instead of the big ny event that I watched every year after and before... smh... anyway, nowadays I don't watch any of that crap, I go out of my way to avoid it, I pride myself on going to bed early those nights and sleeping through the new year 😏

    • @daleva187goligo
      @daleva187goligo 9 месяцев назад

      for whatever stupid reason I watched the local news for the countdown that year instead of the usual new york delayed feed, I'm in ca... I watched two old fogies blow those party whistle things instead of the big ny event that I watched every year after and before... smh... anyway, nowadays I don't watch any of that crap, I go out of my way to avoid it, I pride myself on going to bed early those nights and sleeping through the new year 😏

  • @bghoody5665
    @bghoody5665 4 года назад +107

    "Don't laugh about the Y2K. It could still happen."
    Oscar Leroy (2004)

    • @bb010g
      @bb010g 4 года назад +25

      The Year 2038 problem actually scares me.

    • @FiXato
      @FiXato 4 года назад +17

      @@bb010g I'm quite curious if that too will have as much public fear mongering though. The 1999→1900 rollover probably is easier for people to imagine and understand than 2038→1901. The start of a new millennium (even though one can argue the new millennium really didn't start till 2001) also likely added to the scare.
      Making older systems y2k38-compliant will probably be trickier than y2k-compliancy, and I fear windowing or the use unsigned rather than signed integers will be used as a quick-fix far too often.

    • @Exnem
      @Exnem 4 года назад +8

      @@FiXato Programmers know about it and tbh they are the only ones who really do need to know...

    • @ddsjgvk
      @ddsjgvk 4 года назад +2

      Jackass

    • @BrendonGreenNZL
      @BrendonGreenNZL 4 года назад +5

      Yeah, the 2038 problem is much scarier, given that the majority of those old military systems will run some ancient flavour of UNIX, will run databases and software inspired by the UNIX gettime() function, or both.

  • @mechgt5
    @mechgt5 4 года назад +11

    My father worked on y2k mitigation for ems systems in the late 90s for the Southeastern US, and the threat of things going bad was indeed a threat. But was fixed before it got too bad

  • @MrRowskey
    @MrRowskey 4 года назад +6

    Tech Tales is an absolutely fantastic series that I so bad want more of. I often rewatch old episodes to enjoy them again.

  • @veraxis9961
    @veraxis9961 4 года назад +17

    Couldn't click on this fast enough. I always love the level of effort that goes into these, and I enjoyed the voice cameos for the comments on the aftermath. Your work is most appreciated!

  • @MrVradley
    @MrVradley 4 года назад +10

    I was seven years old and Y2K freaked me, now its one of many "apocalypses" I've now lived through. I built a shelter in the woods behind my house and I still walk down there when a supposed apocalypse is due to reminded me the world keeps turning.

  • @grayman7809
    @grayman7809 4 года назад +9

    Love TechTales and have always wanted one on Y2K! My new second favorite right behind America Online

  • @jamestownsassacre9211
    @jamestownsassacre9211 4 года назад +123

    "Some people will die..."
    I know that sensationalism and hysteria knows no bounds but what exactly was this guy referring to here?

    • @AmyraCarter
      @AmyraCarter 4 года назад +45

      Mayhaps people on life support...(?)
      (would be my only non-apocalyptic based guess)

    • @oz_jones
      @oz_jones 4 года назад +17

      If there is a city-wide outage that lasts long, there will be lootes. And roof Koreans

    • @PedroBorgesNH
      @PedroBorgesNH 4 года назад +40

      People die all the time, for various reasons, he was certainly not wrong.

    • @stockicide
      @stockicide 4 года назад +34

      If hospitals were to lose power for an extended period, doctors might not be able to perform life-saving surgeries. Older people can die if their heating goes out in extremely cold temperatures. Things like that.

    • @ApemanMonkey
      @ApemanMonkey 4 года назад +15

      @Rocket League so, pumping tons and tons of co2 into the atmosphere doesn't affect our climate?

  • @plizzylizzy
    @plizzylizzy 4 года назад +36

    I remember my father was fairly high up the IT ladder at a major international bank during Y2K and he was literally sleeping on a cot at his office while they worked on the Y2K bug.

    • @bayareanewman1566
      @bayareanewman1566 4 года назад +15

      plizzylizzy yup! I was doing tech support for a “token ring” company (Madge Networks) anyways, it was the networking type of choice for most major banks, many of whom hadn’t switched to Ethernet yet. Our “ring switches” had issues where they would crash if not updated. So considering switched failing at a bank could be a huge issue on the network side (never mind the mountains of software doing calculations based on real money using dates (for example calculating interest) it’s no wonder he was up all night! A lot was at stake! One wrong move could have wreaked the banking system! This is a testament to people like your father for making sure that didn’t happen. He low key had a hand in protecting us from a global melt down. If he tells you stories don’t say “ok boomer” it was HUGE! Cool!

  • @lasz1979
    @lasz1979 4 года назад +96

    Basically: "It's not our problem, let the future idiots deal with the problem we are ignoring"
    Humanity's motto may as well be: "We'll deal with it until it bite us in the ass"

    • @wta1518
      @wta1518 4 года назад +2

      Sounds about right.

    • @generalgk
      @generalgk 3 года назад

      You didn't even watch the video did you son?

    • @jesselindsey9760
      @jesselindsey9760 3 года назад

      "Nothing is bad until it hurts me" is humanity's motto.

    • @pennyandwoody
      @pennyandwoody 3 года назад +1

      Sounds like our politicians when people sounded warnings about a pandemic coming in the future. They did nothing to come up with a plain and it bit us in the butt. So here are some other things our politicians have been warned about... New madrid fault having a earthquake in the future. All midwestern states along the mississippi have been warned about this, have been told by geologist that buildings need to be remodeled to withstand earthquakes. Another one was texas getting nailed by a winter storm and was warned to get their power grid ready for it... Yeah bit the texans in the ass didn't it.

    • @TheSilentWalkerz
      @TheSilentWalkerz Год назад

      Sounds like the US and their pension crisis

  • @PeteSkerritt
    @PeteSkerritt 4 года назад +59

    This was great. I remember the hysteria. I watched the ball drop and couldn’t help but to wonder what would happen at the stroke of midnight.
    It’s worth wondering what the scenario would’ve been like had social media and video-on-demand services like RUclips been prevalent as they are now. My guess is that the panic would’ve been worse, as information- true AND false- spreads so quickly, and that many people are naturally gullible.
    Thanks again for your hard work. I really enjoy the content you provide.

    • @spootymaniacs
      @spootymaniacs 4 года назад

      we probably might see slight panic during y2k38 (32 bit integer overflow) bug but i highly doubt given that we already experienced y2k so there will be more knowledge on what to do, if not probably would be overlooked by most possibly because itll be fixed before hand.

  • @RatchetSly
    @RatchetSly 4 года назад +13

    Excellently researched video! I was a kid when 1999 rolled over into 2000, and that my dad offhand mentioned there probably wasn't going to be any big newsworthy Y2K stories in Canada, cuz the government had put effort into fixing their systems through the departments.
    Also the credits tune made me think of Lemon Demon's Redesign Your Logo.

    • @CanuckGod
      @CanuckGod 4 года назад +2

      I was 21 at the time, but as a fellow Canadian, it was pretty uneventful. Only thing wrong on Jan. 1 was with me, still being hung over from the previous night's festivities 😂

    • @rb98769
      @rb98769 4 года назад

      I remember I was on vacation and I was a bit concerned I’d get home and my computer wouldn’t work. I was 10 then, so I didn’t know any better.

  • @Guyfrom2001
    @Guyfrom2001 4 года назад +2

    Thank you so much for releasing this video. I’m working on a “project” based on Y2K, and this is gonna help SO much.

  • @VoidHalo
    @VoidHalo 4 года назад +52

    15:58 I'd recognize 8 Bit Guy's voice anywhere.

  • @jamesharmer9293
    @jamesharmer9293 4 года назад +7

    As a former computer engineer, I spent a lot of time installing Y2K fixes on financial computer systems in London. When it all worked we were all very relieved. I did hear of a few problems, like the bauxite smelter in New Zealand that melted itself into a pile of slag, but these were relatively minor.