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The Y2K Problem - Online Term Paper

The Y2K Problem

What is Y2k? In one sentence, Y2k is "...the inability of computer programs at the year 2000 to interpret the correct century from a recorded or calculated date having only two digits to indicate the year".[Center for Computer Systems Engineering]
What does that mean? It means that many of our computer systems, although sensitive to date and time, have been programmed with a piece missing -- the century portion of the date. These systems were created by humans, who are used to dealing with dates in context using a shorthand that omits the century. (What car do you drive? A '92 Ford, or a '96 Chevy. When did you graduate? Class of '76.) Unfortunately, when the calendar rolls over from 1999 ...

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is to figure out how old you are. If you were born in 1958, then in 1999 this program will calculate your age as 99 minus 58, or 41. That's fine, but what happens when the century rolls over to '20' in the year 2000? In this program, the year will appear as '00' but the century will still be assumed to be '19' -- so the program will calculate your age as 00 minus 58, or -58. Then, depending on the program's error-handling capacity, it might abnormally end or otherwise stop running; or it might send the negative age to another program (which might then fail); or it might omit the sign from the number and pass your age off as 58. The last example is the most insidious, as 58 is not an unreasonable value for an age. It's wrong in this case, but it could easily be propagated throughout other systems without being detected.
Why should I care? The good news is that Y2k is almost completely limited to computer hardware and software. The bad news is that, these days, computer hardware and ...

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The Y2K Problem. (2006, April 18). Retrieved February 20, 2026, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Y2K-Problem/44577

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 4/18/2006 06:45:46 AM
Category: Science & Nature
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 770
Pages: 3

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