On the Other Hand...

That's the count, on the day this article first appears: 430 days until (a) the biggest damp squib ever, or (b) the biggest disaster this side of WW-II, or (c) something in between. And whereas most of what you read in these columns is infallible and certain, on this occasion I'll make it clear: my best guess is for (c), but I'm not sure. It could be any of the three.

The referenced event is, of course, the turn of the clock in to the new century, when all computers in the world risk getting disconbobulated by the flipping of the last two digits of the year from 99 to 00. January 1st, 2000, will be the Day of the Double Zero, and the world will hold its breath.

If you're not familiar with why this could cause trouble, now's your chance: come back here later, but pay a visit at once to the Web site of Y2K guru Gary North and get an education.

There are three factors that may cause a disaster: (i) mainframe computer programs may need re-writing, (ii) hard-wired computer chips, in just about anything, may need replacing and (iii) the domino effect; one organization's failure may cripple all others in its industry.

Let's try to take a sober look at these three, and I'll show why I come down in favor of Prognosis (c) above; the middle-of-the-road prediction.

"Mainframe" computers are the big ones that were first programmed in the 60s, when 1999 was a very long way away and when storage was expensive. Programmers saved valuable space by omitting the "19" whenever referencing the date. The computers have been replaced several times, but some of the programs are still humming along. For another 430 days...

Every large company and government department with which we are familiar is in this position. They all entered the Computer Era over 30 years ago. They all have The Bug. And some of them have been spending hundreds of millions of dollars to find it and kill it. Many will succeed. A few will probably not.

North, and others, point to the fact that billions of lines of program code have to be checked, for anything to do with dates, and to the fact that that task is now impossible because 430 days is not nearly enough for the whole world's population of programmers.

This, however, exaggerates the truth, and discounts the ingenuity of the free market in finding a solution. Sure, that search could not be done with human eye; but that need has stimulated the production of sniffer programs which use the computer's own power to do the searching of its own programs. If that sounds incestuous, don't worry; I think we can rely on the government's morality police to leave that seeming obscenity well and truly alone.

Sniffers aren't infallible; they will identify only a large majority of code that deals with dates. On 1/1/2000, some computers will crash because one day in 1966, a smart programmer found a smart way to program a date-lookup that nobody else uses, and that today's sniffers will therefore miss. But they will deal with the great majority; and that's why I think North's scenario of gloom is seriously over-stated, in this first area.

These are small integrated circuits that form part of a vast range of electronic items, from range cookers to seabed oil-drilling equipment. If they were designed with a clock function, and if the design economized with 2 digits for the year, they can't be re-programmed but must be replaced.

And the problem is that the paperwork is so old that nobody can tell how many such there are nor where they can be found, and the manufacturers may have quit the business so there is no way of replacing them quickly even when located.

The bright side, as I see it, is that very few would have any need of a clock function. Even the chip that drives most wristwatches - a clock if ever there was one - doesn't refer to the year; that's why we have to wrestle with those little knobs every time there's a February 29th. So while there will certainly be some unpleasant surprises, I don't see this area as a source of catastrophe.

Suppose a manufacturer of, say, car brakes should fail to make his mainframe computer compliant in time; then within a week or so there'd be a shut-down of Ford, Chrysler and GM. So all their workers will be laid off, they will buy less, the whole economy will spiral down. It's not hard to see that something similar could take place in virtually every industry - including power distribution. And when electric power goes out, nothing works; not even the computers the programmers will be laboring night and day to fix.

This effect, I do see as much more dangerous. It will affect some industries more than others, but overall this could yield what Alan Greenspan, that master of obfuscation and under-statement, recently clarified as a "serious problem."

This is actually the gravest danger of them all, for at the first sign of social disruption, we can rely on all government thugs from Slick Willie upwards to step in with their weapons and deprive us all of the last shreds of liberty that we possess. Bubba's finger must be fairly itching, to sign the Emergency Proclamation and initiate martial law - as a kind of Rake's Revenge.

So as well as food, water, fuel, generators and gold, do be sure to prepare for the new millennium by laying in store plenty of guns and ammunition.

© Copyright Jim Davies 1999

Jim Davies lives in New Hampshire,
and enjoys contemplating which way is up.

The above is Edition # 281

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