By: David J. Wardell

© 1998 By: David J. Wardell.  Reproduction or redistribution in any form without written permission is strictly prohibited.

Most of the people making the loudest Y2K noise are consultants and others whose businesses might be helped by furthering as much confusion and panic on this issue as possible. Then there are the "wiser than wise" folks who say that the problem has been vastly exaggerated and won’t amount to much

Who are you to believe? How did the Y2K "bug" get started anyway? The answer is that there is indeed a Y2K and its consequence varies widely.

To begin with, forget about the wise ones who tell you they predicted the problem long ago but no one listened. I’ve met a few people who might claim a space in this category, but practically no one recognized the extent of the problem even a few years ago.

The best place for pundits who want you to believe what they’re saying today because they predicted Y2K disaster all along is into the same category as financial advisors who dress like flood victims—"If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?"

The Y2K problem arises because there are different ways in which computers and their software deal with dates. In simplest terms, many applications represent years with only two digits (09-01-98 as opposed to 09-01-1998).

When an application encounters dates such as 01-01-00, the system might recognize that date as January 1, 2000, or perhaps as January 1, 1900, or perhaps it won’t know how to deal with it at all.

Resolving the Y2K problem means bringing consistency and predictability to the way a particular machine deals with dates—to the extent that the operator can accept the result.

Every system and application that is date-sensitive has to be evaluated for Y2K problems independently. Only part of the system might be affected or the operator may be able to work around it.

So what actions should individuals take? One expert I listened to advised people to have paper backups of every piece of data affecting their lives, to the point that stockholders should have their shares issued in certificate form in case the financial markets collapse.

Nonsense. If major portions of the U.S. stock trading system were to collapse my holding a certificate for a few hundred shares wouldn’t enable the financial markets to operate without their computers.

The experts also like to point out the vast number of systems with Y2K problems that can’t possible be fixed in the next few months. True, but many of these systems aren’t worth fixing.

I worked with a company recently that used no less than four accounting systems, one of which was not Y2K ready. The solution to their problems rests with getting on a single accounting system, not fixing a useless old one.

Individuals should determine whether they have any affected systems and take immediate steps to either repair or replace them. There are solutions available for large-scale systems with Y2K problems, but implementing them involves more than simply adding two digits onto the years in use.

Most personal computers are either unaffected or affected in ways that don’t matter. For instance, people talk about Y2K upgrades to the BIOS (the low-level computer code that controls the essential operation of the system) on their PCs. Most PCs don’t have BIOS-driven Y2K problems; the ones that do usually aren’t fixable through upgrades, and virtually none of the ones that could be fixed are worth the effort—it’s cheaper and more productive simply to replace them.

The manufacturers of most systems and popular software publish statements on the state of their Y2K problems. You should be familiar with the position of all the tools you use.

There is a very real Y2K problem but prudent actions, not irrational panic, are the key to working through it.