It was known by an awkward acronym -- Y2K. It stood for the impending technological doom.
But four days into the New Year, Y2K looks destined to go into the history books as the big nothing.
Maybe a few small glitches around the world have been reported. But our society has hardly reverted back to the Dark Ages, as some had predicted.
"Overall I think it was kind of a bust -- a major non-event", says Andrew Michie of E.R. Group Inc., a Hamilton-based computer consulting business. "Every indication is that things seem to be going OK." Those were difficult words for Michie after banging the Y2K drum for two years, warning small and medium-sized businesses they need to check and possibly upgrade their computer systems for themillennium.
'Overall I think it was kind of a bust -- a major non-event.' |
He still believes Y2K compliance is important, as do other experts. Glitches could still crop up later this year.
Yet, there have been very few problems reported so far. This is significant because it shows upgrades for systems are working and computers that are not Y2K compliant are not breaking down the way many predicted.
Michie says that while big corporations and government departments spent billions of dollars on Y2K preparedness, smaller businesses "basically ignored it. I did several presenations and speeches to small bsiness groups and spoke to a lot of people. But very few actually did anything about it."
And now, he's astonished that no one has phoned him since New Year's to say they need help because they didn't follow his advice.
"I haven't hear of any misadventure from Y2K. In a way it's a big surprise. But I do know some firms will, somewhere along the way, suffer some problems. It is early days."
One client, he said, actually called to cancel a software upgrade order made in late December.
"They went in (yesterday) and turned on their existing equipment. It seemed to work so they decided to cancel their order."
George Geczy, part-owner of JMG Compusmart, which has clients that include both Hamilton school boards, the City of Hamilton, and the Hamilton Public Library, says he hasn't hear of anyone having Y2K difficulties either.
But why?
Geczy says: "As long as people did the very basics of making sure their important software, such as accounting software works, it really didn't pose that great a threat for general computing."
He notes it wasn't that long ago -- in the late '80s -- when computer users would have to reprogram the time and date into their computer each time they turned it on."
"Y2K isn't exactly a problem, if your computer doesn't know the date and time when you turn it on."
Bruce Dawson, owner of the Computer Trade-In Post in Hamilton, that buys and trades older computers, says no one has called his business with Y2K problems either.
He says non-compliant computers "are still going to run. They just won't give an accurate date. If you are just using the computer for word processing, you probably don't care."
Marvin Ryder, assistant vice-president of information services and technology at McMaster University, said "so far, so good here".
"Not a thing has happened. There have been no problems, which was even more amazing than we hoped."
McMaster spetn more than $1 million on Y2K preparedness, but he noted it was part of an overal computer upgrade at the university.
Area school boards and area municipalities have not reported any major problems.
Dofasco spokesman Bill Gair said: "Dofasco has successfully entered the new millennium without problems. All systems are operating normally and we have been fully operational since New Year's Day."
A stelco spokesperson was unavailable for comment.
McMaster University computer science professor David Jones says, "I think it's clear there was a bit of media hype that was going on behind it (Y2K)."
He noted the lack of problems also showed that "behind the technology we use today, we have very highly skilled people who know what they are doing ... we need to be reminded that glitches happen all the time ... you just deal with them."
But David Parnas, a McMaster University professor at the university's Communication Research Laboratory, noted that creating the Y2K problem in the first place "was a very stupid mistake". And that should be remembered.
Software glitches happen frequently, he said, and for some reason people tend to accept them.