Boston Globe Online / Business / Y2K: Ready or Not

A glitch in Y2K

Racing the clock

Troubleshooting your home PC

Take precautions with finances, analysts say

How prepared is the region?

The problem in a nutshell

What could go wrong

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The problem in a nutshell

Y2K (short for Year 2000) problems arise because many computers, software programs, and embedded chips read only the last two digits of 4-digit years, i.e., "99" for "1999." To them "00" looks earlier than "99."

An age calculation

DATE OF CALCULATION
Jan. 31, 1999
Jan. 31, 2000
BIRTHDAY
Jan. 31, 1935
Jan. 31, 1935
AGE CALCULATED
64
65, -35, or "error"

Why it is hard to fix the dates

Embedded chips in appliances, electronic devices, and other machines are built in and cannot be checked.

Billions of lines of computer code must be checked.

Even if every date is identified and fixed, 10-15 percent of the fixes will cause a problem, according to Y2K consultant Capers Jones.

Dates can be hard to detect. Here are a few examples of how dates may appear in computer code:

EXPLICIT DATES
01-31-99 (United States)
31-01-99 (Europe)
99-31-01 (International Standard)

By Dec. 31, 99 percent of these dates should be found; 3 percent of the fixes may cause errors, according to Jones.

HIDDEN DATES
DATE + 12 months	Instructs program to search any database and read last 2 digits of any year found.
013199123	Dates can be hidden in longer strings of numbers.
99-99-99	Dates can be encoded for security. in this example, "99" means "01."
FE-DC-BA	Encrypted dates look like symbols.


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