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Article: Year 2000: a ticking PC time bomb? Not if you're prepared. (Year 2000 date problem; includes list of Web sites that provide information about the Year 2000 problem)
- Article from:
- Australian PC World
- Article date:
- March 1, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 IDG Communications Pty. Ltd - Australia. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The year 2000 time bomb is well and truly ticking. In fact, you now have less than two years to prepare for the year 2000 problem. And no, it isn't just something that mainframe programmers have to worry about.
This problem, also called the millennium bug, is the result of some astonishing shortsightedness. To conserve storage space -- once far more precious than it is today -- many PCs, mainframes, and applications use only two digits to store years. When you type "16/01/98", a computer knows that you mean 16 January, 1998. This works fine until the dawn of a new century Then if you enter "16/01/00", the computer gets confused: is the year 1900 or 2000?
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