What About Your Millennium Bug?

The public has been warned. The year 2000 will hit corporate computers with the force of El Nino, potentially imperiling aircraft, halting tax collections, and generally clobbering commerce. Corporations are spending billions to solve the "Y2K" problem, but what should owners of personal computers do to protect themselves?

In most cases, I think you have little or nothing to worry about. Corporations and governments must fix programs and databases that were designed decades ago. Back then, the millennium was hardly a speck on the horizon, and very high storage costs encouraged programmers to cheat and use just two digits to identify a year. Personal computers entered widespread use in the mid-1980s and were designed with the 21st century in mind. Unfortunately, however, some of the methods for handling the millennium were flawed. These glitches will cause annoyances for some, but they won't threaten your files or the ability of computers to function.