These days I read about surveys, polls and so on. on "what to save" the first ten years of the New Millennium and it is books, movies, TV shows, songs ... What interests me is rather the time of the millennium. And I must say that I feel a bit 'strange that we speak a little, ten years later. Especially if you remember the hype of '99. I refer in particular to the case of the dreaded catastrophe evoked by much trumpeted
the Year 2000 problem. Do you remember? In the newspapers there were articles at every turn to describe the phenomenon of
Millennium Bug. From senior who has worked a lifetime in computer science now acknowledges that there was much exaggeration. We professionals prefer to talk about "uaitukèi" because we used the acronym "Y2K
" became more technologically correct.
In two words: the date change, that is, going from December 31, 1999
to January 1, 2000, computers around the world (programs and files) in which the year was marked with only two digits would go haywire ... In fact, without the intervention measures to prevent the following year 99 (ie 1999) by adding a space in memory of two characters came out the year 00 (ie 1900 instead of 2000), would have happened a mess, huh? It 'clear that doing nothing, leave things as they were, would amount to undermine the banking and financial systems, air traffic, power plants, industrial plants, telecommunications etc.. To avert this catastrophe was necessary to replace time the old hardware (with embedded boards on board with the two-digit year) and particularly to update a lot of application software to achieve what was called in slang "
Y2K compliance, which is fully compatible with the four-year figures. This in a nutshell the problem, which alerted the governments all over the world, forcing everyone to invest a lot of money to
1) adjust its fleet and renew older equipment
2) shift work arrays programmers to review millions of lines of code, that is, programs
3) update the files (the database) where the year was recorded with only the last 2 characters and bring 4 character.
I express myself well because I was too involved in this story, in the special context of the information structure of a large healthcare company, based on a central system of old-fashioned, I know that the term "mainframe" say little, now that many PC has invaded our daily life, but I assure you that the computer
was - and how - even before the advent of personal computers! Back to us, I can testify that, although as is often exaggerated in the media, it was a real thing, not invented. What is more expensive! At the central level the government had established the
"Year 2000 Committee" and locally each administration, every company constituted the real crisis unit. In my case, since the public health sector, there was little to joke: were are preparing all the necessary measures to deal with emergencies more delicate, like, say, in an intensive care unit suddenly stopped working respirators or missing heating in wards or the emergency room will have dozens and dozens of people at once. In short, it seems easy, after, but must be provided as it can, first, otherwise it is a problem. In the end everything was resolved for the best, no drama happened: the planes crashed (and even the stock exchanges), the money did not disappear from banks, the patients remained in the heat, internet continued to function and so on. In short, life went on as before, despite the specter of the Millennium Bug and the fatal fascination of thousands of years. (The Board closed the year 2000 management units January 5, 2000). However there had been information technology employees between us some anxiety, because nobody had the absolute certainty of how it would end at midnight on 31 December. In this regard, invested as I was responsible for coordinating the affair of 2000, I remember that during the last quarter of '99 our team of software engineers was engaged to complete the updates and test changes. I was sure, however, that something would go wrong, because in some cases, the first axiom of
Murphy's law is sacrosanct: it regularly occurs damn son of a p. .... had forgotten to update a program! Well, never mind, it was all in the forecast and we were there just to make things right, no? However, now the fateful evening of December 31, I assumed the burden of providing first-person off the mainframe before midnight and the system reboots (
bootstrap ) after entering in 2000 (highly recommended by the task manufacturer). Of course, being connected to the internet for hours I knew that in countries where the transition had already happened all the evidence said: no problem! So I was quiet, although a little 'excited. Incidentally I will say that this was not my first night in the company of a computer, but it was certainly a special night. Here, while people in those hours was normal at home or at the restaurant to celebrate the new year, I took part in an event that loneliness ... but come on, in the end nothing happened, everything was perfectly normal! On the other hand, as I could "sacrifice" someone younger workers and ruin the New Year's Eve? I'd rather make a small withdrawal, because so much now, I did not care as much about holidays: New Year's Eve, then, I've always considered a pizza ... To be honest, I would not let event to others for any reason, but I could not admit it, then!
I have to correct something, though: before I said that I was alone during those hours, but in reality
about 30-40 minutes after midnight, when everything was already taken , it happened unexpectedly my head with a bottle of champagne in hand and two glasses for a toast. Cute, no? We toasted to our health, first, then to escape from danger (say Mr Cetto Laqualunque: 'nt ass to the millennium bug!) But instead use "inter pocula" even a little thought to our general manager, who under the guise of 2000 we pulled a fairly small sum that was served to replace the old subsystem backed up with a brand new, much more efficient and practical and, of course, entirely compatible with the year 2000!
Wolf.
