The Clock Ticks Toward The New Milennium… And the Year 2000 Computer Crisis Begins Forboding Greets the Twenty-First Century… Can The Problem Be Corrected?

It’s now December. Next month you will be writing 1999 on your checks. It will perhaps then become clear to everyone that a date that somehow always seemed to be very distant — the year 2000 — is, in reality, right around the corner.
On Dec. 31, 1999 at the stroke of midnight, a day, a month, a year and a decade will end. But when the crowds gather in Times Square to watch the ball drop, and people around the world party and pray, we will all be participating in an event that hasn’t occurred in a thousand years.
In just 390 days a century and a millennium will come to an end. And a new millennium will begin.
The last time this happened in the year 999, the world went through convulsions of insecurity and doubt in the expectation of numerous disasters and changes. It was believed that the world would come to an end. Then most of these beliefs were based on mystical or religious beliefs of an upcoming apocalypse.
This time, as a perhaps fitting way for the 20th Century to end, it is not a deity that is putting fear of the "end of the world" into many people’s minds. It is the computer.
The problem is striking terror into many sane, rational brilliant scientists, engineers, economists and business people. It is called the year 2000 computer bug, or Y2K for short (the "Y’ for year, the "2K" for 2000). Some of the nation’s 25 billion microchips — 100 for every man, woman and child — are likely to fail when the two digit "99" written into their data codes turns to "00". The date may be unrecognizable. This problem comes about because in the infancy and adolescent stages of computers, programmers thought that it would be wise to save precious memory space by dumping the "19" prefix and retain only the last two digits of the year. Since most computers base their data or functions on the date, when the digits "00" turn up at midnight of January 1, 2000, the computers will think the year is actually "1900" and all kinds of nightmarish scenarios are being envisioned.
This is a serious potential problem that is not some far-out science-fiction or cult fantasy or some crisis that will only affect computer nerds, internet fanatics or big-time corporate entities. It will affect everyone on earth, it will impact our nation, state and city and quite possibly every resident of Queens.
Among the potential calamities that some experts see as real possibilities: heart pacemakers failing; millions stuck in elevators between floors in skyscrapers and apartment high-rises; welfare, Medicaid, Social Security, and payroll checks delayed for months; bank ATM machines that will not operate, credit cards that won’t be accepted, bank and tax records emptied to collect debts that computers think are 100 years past due. Cars that fail to start on roads clogged with traffic turned to chaos because of immobolized signals; useless VCRs, TVs, microwaves, etc.; planes falling from the sky and nuclear missiles launched by renegade software. You get the idea.
Some Y2K "experts" really believe that another stone age may be around the corner, envisioning a collapsed economy, looting and robbery for cash and goods, and some call for people to get out their cash before the big day and stockpile imperishable food and water — and guns. And although the alarmists are basing their fears on technology, not religion, this week the Rev. Jerry Falwell actually suggested that the Y2K problem is really a retribution from God to punish mankind for the sins of the 20th Century.
There are others who take a more optimistic approach to the Y2K problem, saying that most large corporations are ready to fix the problem by next year. But even those more optimistic observers express fear for smaller business and government, which might not have the resources or knowledge to solve their individual problems. Just this past week USA Today carried a front page story about how the Pentagon office responsible for the safety and security of U.S. nuclear stockpiles acknowledged falsifying readiness reports on the looming Year 2000 problem. The New York Times last week front-paged how the health and human services agencies were badly prepared for Y2K.
Respected observers are expressing concern. Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, told a Congressional committee, "I have no question that we’re going to have unusual things occurring." Edward Yardem of Deutsche Securities sees economic upheaval but declares himself "a realistic pessimist and alarmist about the Year 2000 problem."
Here is what the Commissioner of the IRS told the Wall Street Journal this past April, "There’s no point in sugarcoating the problem. If we don’t fix the century-date problem, we will have a situation scarier than the average disaster movie you might see on Sunday night. Twenty-one months from now, there could be 90 million taxpayers who won’t get their refunds, and 95 percent of the revenue stream of the United States could be jeopardized."
As far as Queens’ preparedness is concerned, Borough President Claire Shulman has conducted a number of meetings with local and City officials to monitor how this Borough — particularly its many senior citizens, students and small businesses — will deal with the situation. In the adjoining Queens Courier article, City, State and Federal officials speak of their efforts to handle the Y2K situation. Queens Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney even worked on a Congressional Committee that prepared a "report card" on how federal agencies are dealing with the problem.
Meanwhile the clock ticks ahead to the inevitable dawn of the 21st century and the Third Millennium.