CruiseForLife
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Jul 30, 2026 7:48 PM
CruiseForLife
1530
44
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UglyDanTheUglyMan
That's Windows 10, poser.
bippityboppitybuttsex
There was a real problem and we joined together to fix it... we even dragged retirees back to work to reprogram systems originally written in Cobol (and other dead languages).
Fixing a problem is a good thing.
cousteau
All that effort and that hassle just for nothing to happen… which I guess was the goal!
lonosham
No, it didn’t. That was the projected “worst case” scenario if things went catastrophically bad from inaction. This is just lazy “journalism”
IgnisInvictus
You are incorrect. The total cost of the work done in preparation for Y2K likely surpassed $300 billion, adjusted for inflation that's over $500 billion.
It would have been worse had all that work not been done.
Bregfret
The moment at the end of Nov 5th, 2024 cost us all even more...
anwyl42
there's another one coming up, though hopefully everyone's already using 64 bit timestamps by now... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem
ilhares
I only recently migrated my codebase fully to 64-bit this year. Had a lot of pointer and buffer issues, but it's good to go now.
TexMexHex
I was playing Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun when it changed. The laptop went bonkers then said night night.
H2ONerd
I may or may not have taken a few payments for changing the date display to yyyy in a few computers.
RetrogradeLlama
As someone who wrote a lot of that code that was in trouble at the end of the century, it was not overblown.
Companies took steps to correct for the problems and prevented a disaster. End of story.
SirRealOfTheShire
I was hired by a company to insure all their computers were Y2K ready. It was a 2 month contract. It was 8 PC techs and me a Mac tech. I sent 3 months doing nothing because they didn't want to pay out my contract. I waited until after I was hired to tell them that the Macs were already Y2K ready. Oopsy.
nintendolunchbox
Thumbs up their asses
jimhotep
That single second saved is trillions.
bigdix69420
And it worked
Slugsie
Maybe, but as someone who was involved in Y2K work I can guarantee you that the cost of not doing it would have been a whole lot more.
backrideup9
It didn't cost the world anything. At worst it delayed some millionaire becoming a billionaire by a few years because their company overpaid for consulting services or they authorized some OT for the IT department to find a fix.
ManholeStellarReconveneSubstanceOlympicsReunion
This is the correct perspective.
UnattendedDeviant
Definitely this. And there was more than enough work for all the big consulting companies. I programmed for one.
We stayed busy years before the date hit. So much code out there that never thought it would be around to worry about the need for 4 digit years.
jackodn
It was kind of wild that no one really knew what would happen. At the s/w company I was at, pretty much any employee who could possibly be needed worked overnight and just waited.
szpet627
https://imgur.com/GawPKaT.mp4
Vebrandsson
There was a lot of work and a lot of time and a lot of effort put into a lot of patches and updates to so many things to make sure that when this happened, nothing happened, and everything just kept working. The harder one to fix is going to be the 2038 problem and I fear we'll wait until that date gets too close to happening to address it.
Vebrandsson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem
fformulaa
Thanks for that link! Can't they just change the variable to be 64bit rather than 32bit? My history is c# vb.net and javascript, that's what you're dealing with
Vebrandsson
Generally speaking, in systems that can handle the 64 bit variable that's the solution but a lot of operating system are still 32 bit and can't handle it (the linux 32 bit kernel couldn't until just a few years ago) or even if they are 64 bit still use a 32 bit time variable, there are also a lot of 32 bit time variables in certification authorities for HTTPS for example as well. For things running embedded software that rarely or can't easily be updated there will be issues.
fformulaa
Thank you for the easy to follow explanation! Sounds like a complex situation for some smart people to solution! https://media4.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1Yzl4MXN3MXBiaWdseXVndnhxNzlnZTl4N29sYnZkZGI0anQ0MjJjbiZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/BWjTRoBsEKnII/200w.webp
usernametakenisthestoryofmylife
Aa LOT of preparation was made to accommodate that one second.
usernametakenisthestoryofmylife
I remember my dog was supposed to start barking in Spanish, and my car wouldn't start anymore.
BenjyX55
None of the warnings came true because the world recognized the issue and preempted it.
Nukls
raitchison
I got a MacBook Air last year, as my first ever Apple product. Since it's the custom to decorate your Mac with stickers I decided to put a unique spin on it.
digmybones
I was on AOL all night long
TheDisscoPotato
I was playing crash bandicoot warped. Beat it a little after 12, didn’t even know the ball dropped or anything. The world didn’t end so I kept gaming.
jqubed
I drove around with my friends hoping to find ATMs spewing cash out like a fountain. They did not.
digitreal
cousteau
Funny how most if not all of those in the Ports section have been replaced by USB or USB-C
digitreal
Fundamentally all of them. Guess it puts the U in USB.
cousteau
It started as a replacement for actual serial buses (of the slowish kind), but now it's replacing stuff that wasn't serial to begin with. Like video. (Which is neat, because the more the merrier.)
beelzebob23
Sauce?
usernametakenisthestoryofmylife
"sauce"? It was Y2K!
beelzebob23
I know it was Y2K. Asking about sauce on the $5B.
IgnisInvictus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2000_problem
Otherwise known as Y2K.
alt86er
From the very article you cite here: »The total cost of the work done in preparation for Y2K likely surpassed US$300 billion ($561 billion as of May 2025, adjusted for inflation)« So... no, it didn't.