Y2K Reality Check

Many predicitons have been made about Y2K. This page compares these predicitions with reality.

Page last updated 07/16/99

The Predictions:

• Major Problems begin on July 1^st 1998
• Major Problems begin on January 1^st 1999
• Problems will begin April 1^st
• Serious problems on April 7^th
• Serious problems on April 9^th
• Major Problems begin on July 1^st 1999
• Major Problems begin on September 9^th 1999
• Problems will worsen beginning October 1^st 1999
• Y2K problems will be spread out over time
• Something will happen

Major Problems begin on July 1^st 1998

This predicition from the chief high priest of the doom-and-gloomers, Gary North:
"Warning: Fiscal years arrive before calendar years do. Fiscal years for most states roll over on July 1. Fiscal year 99 rolls over on July 1, 1998 in most state budgets. If just one state shuts down because its computers are programmed to read 99 as end of run, the bank run will begin in that state no later than July 2, 1998. It will spread to the whole world when depositors realize that the entire payments system - and most governments - will shut down no later than the year 2000."
Part of this predicition has come and gone by now (04/19/1999), but this has not deterred Mr. North.

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Major Problems begin on January 1^st 1999

"When we get to Jan. 1, 1999, there will be so many systems that deal with one-year projections of dates that we'll have real fireworks. Maybe that'll get people serious, but unfortunately, if that's what it took, by then it'll be too late.
    "It's hard to believe it could cause this much trouble. Second, it has no business value. It's hard for management to divert funds from more strategic initiatives to fix this. And on top of the whole thing is this cloak of silence, being concerned of the impact of talking about what's going on."

And, according to Data Dimensions:
"[T]hese computers [AS/400s] use the languages RPG and RPG III. Unfortunately, the teaching of RPG III encouraged the use of '99' as a program switch."
This predicition was especially disturbing as there are many many many AS/400s in service world wide, yet there were no major problems reported.

"There were, indeed, some problems on January 1, 1999, but they were by no means catastrophic. Police at Stockholm's Arlanda international airport had trouble giving temporary travel documents to four travelers who had lost their passports. The computer they were using would not accept "99" as a two-digit expression of 1999. Some other problems that occurred were not caused by the "99" problem at all. For example, some taxi customers - also in Stockholm, Sweden - were charged regular rates rather than higher holiday rates. And in Norway, customers of Statoil, the state-run oil company, were unable to use credit cards: It seems Statoil forgot to program the pumps to accept credit cards after 1998."


--Dennis Behreandt, The New American, 04/26/1999

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Problems will begin April 1^st

This prediction comes from Loren Jacobs, who was quoted in the March 30, 1999 issue of WordNetDaily regarding Y2K problems beginning April 1, 1999:
"I expect the stock market to react and begin a downward spiral, and the number of Y2K optimists will continue to dwindle."
and from Kaye Corbett in the same issue:
"That's when Canada and New York State begin their fiscal year that will, of course, include dates beyond Year 2000. As a result, planning systems, especially budgets that haven't been repaired, will fail as they attempt to process Y2K dates. ... With New York City being the world's media capital, such tabs as the New York Daily News, will be yelling: 'Horror! Disaster!'"
Matthew Hotle, analyst at Gartner Group, Reuters, 11/03/98, said:
"The millennium computer problem is going to start manifesting itself as we cross into 1999. There will also be clusters of problems at key dates like the end of the first quarter."
The basis for the prediction is that on April 1^st Canada, Japan and 13 states among them New York begin their fiscal years. This, of course, means that their computer software must be able to project forward into the year 2000. Jacobs seems to think that there will be serious problems in New York and elsewhere. Here we'll just monitor the Dow Jones Industrial Average as that seems to be the key to the predicition quoted above.

	04/04 : Sunday	04/11 : Sunday	04/18 : Sunday
	04/05 : + 104	04/12 : +166	04/19 :  -53
	04/06 : - 47	04/13 :+55	04/20 : +8
	04/07 : + 122	04/14 :+17	04/21 : +133
04/01 : + 46	04/08 : + 112	04/15 :+51
04/02 : Market closed, Good Friday	04/09 : - 23	04/16 :+32
04/03 : Saturday	04/10 : Saturday	04/17 : Saturday

After three weeks, the Dow is up 576 points and I think it's safe to say that this prediction is proven Wrong!



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Serious problems on April 7^th

This predicition claims that April 7^th is the 99 ^th day of 1999 : most recently made by Matt Friedman in Wired News, 04/01/99. This is a most curious prediction, since simple grade-school arithmatic indicates that April 7^th is most definately not the 99^th day of 1999:
31 : January
28 : February
31 : March
  7 : April
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97 : Total Days
This prediction was made concerning Canada, and perhaps Canadians begin the new year on December 30^th -- but I don't think so.

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Serious problems on April 9^th

This predicition has been made by some many people that it would be a full-time job to keep track of them all. The prediction is based on the fact that April 9^th is the 99 ^th day of 1999 and computers will see 9999 and hiccup. The Y2K Heretic doesn't think so, but we'll keep an eye on things and dutifully report them here just in case.
April 17,1999: After one week I think it's fairly obvious that the threatened problems did not materialize.

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Major Problems begin on July 1^st 1999

This predicition from Lou Marcoccio of the Gartner consulting group reported in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, 04/18/99.
"[T]he causes [for Y2K failures to begin in July] will be forecasting software that looks six months into the future, the beginning of new fiscal years for many corporations and some date-related anomalies in software code."

Well, there were a couple problems reported in the national press around this time:
• 07/08/99, New Berlin, Wis. : residents were left without water ... after a new computer system designed to sidestep Y2K problems malfunctioned. Two main water tanks drained when computers failed to activate pumps to fill them. Residents had to ration their water.
• 07/08/99, Air France stranded 4,000 pieces of luggage at Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport. Due to an unsuccessful attempt to upgrade the airport's baggage computer system to squash the bug. Some travelers were luggage-less for two days.
And if this is all we have to fear, y-a-a-w-n-n.


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Major problems will occur on Septermber 9^th 1999

This predicition has been made by many people and is based on the September 9^th is 9/9/99 or 9999 and this will cause computer problems.

The Y2K Heretic doesn't think so, but we'll keep an eye on things and dutifully report them here just in case.

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Problems will worsen beginning October 1^st 1999

This predicition from Lou Marcoccio of the Gartner consulting group reported in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, 04/18/99.
"The number of Y2K failures will increase further in October as forecasting software that looks three months ahead runs up against the Jan. 1, 2000, date and still more companies begin new fiscal years"


The Energy Department reported that a purchasing system temporarily failed, and the science foundation reported problems with a system that provides information to grant recipients. But that's it! Another bust on the doom and gloom front.

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Y2K Problems Will be Spread Out Over Time

Two quotes attributed to the Gartner Group in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, 04/18/99:
"The script for Y2K is all wrong. Instead of Y2K failures occurring at midnight on Dec. 31, they will be spread over a 30-month period that will begin in July"

"25 percent of Y2K computer failures will occur in 1999, 55 percent will occur in 2000 and 15 percent will occur in 2001. The other 5 percent occurred before 1999."

These are actually excellant predictions since they can be proven true by any Y2K related failure over a comaratively long (2 1/2 year) interval. Hard to miss with a predicition like this. It's kinda' like prediciting that the stock market will go down sometime over the next 30 months -- well, Duh-Uh.

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Something will happen!

"In spite of all these clues the only thing a rational person can conclude is that somehow, someway, it is highly probable that something bad will happen either because of Y2K or on behalf of Y2K. Problems and violence will either be born of lunacy or rationalized planning, of a foreign or domestic nature, and on either a small or large scale, but you can bet -- say the experts -- that something will happen."
Jon E. Dougherty, World Net Daily, 07/12/99
[Empasis in the original.]

Hard to miss on this one. Heck even nothing can be reasonably equated to "something will happen."




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