Reply to: 15 years since the Millennium Bug

[Platypus]

We were unaffected as we used VMS.

Wrong! Although VMS was not affected, there are (were) plenty of lazy programmers coding 2-digit dates into data files.

[NickFitz]

Around 1986, a friend was working on a system running on a couple of PCs to gather data from the hardware that weighed slaughtered pigs in an abattoir - the pigs were slung up by the hind legs on a kind of monorail affair, slaughtered, cut open and their guts emptied out, then travelled over the weighing mechanism mounted up on the monorail that sent the data over a serial link to his system in a small room to one side. A pig every three seconds, IIRC.

One evening he was talking about his latest work on the system, grinned broadly, and said "Tell you what, I hope they're not expecting to be running this thing in fourteen years' time, because they're in for a very nasty surprise when the year ticks over to 2000!"

He'd raised the issue, but it was dismissed as just one of those weird things nerds babble about by his seniors.

So at least some developers did actually anticipate this stuff well in advance, but doing anything about it was considered out of scope by whoever was managing things.

And as Sainsbury's and the other supermarkets supplied by the abattoir continued to sell pork in the early days of 2000, one can only assume that his system was either no longer in use, or had been suitably patched.

[stek]

We were unaffected as we used VMS. Still tested it though although that was another team.

Still had to come in though on 2 hour shifts (I think it was 2 hours). I was contracting and the rumoured super-overtime never materialised, in fact, we worked out the lasses behind the bar on the local were on more than us that night.

So I spent that night partly on a Nuclear Power Station, then watching the fireworks going off in town from my living room....

[Pondlife]

First proper job on a SAP implementation team from 98 to beat the bug. Rennes, Ghent, Gothenburg, Saarlouis (DE), Wissenbourg(FR) all in 2 years.

[colinrobinson]

By 2000 you'd have missed the boat. Part of the drive for the implementations of SAP was that it was one way to ensure the bug didn't manifest. The rates pre-2000 for SAP were twice what they were afterwards. The contracts were few and far between, and very dull maintenance type stuff. Investing in training has never been a good way of getting into SAP - customers demand experience.

That would explain why i only did 1 sap installation an activeActive SQL Cluster hosting several SAP modules.

[NotAllThere]

Seem to remember SAP and ERP being the thing to get into next, never did though re-training cost seemed prohibitive.

By 2000 you'd have missed the boat. Part of the drive for the implementations of SAP was that it was one way to ensure the bug didn't manifest. The rates pre-2000 for SAP were twice what they were afterwards. The contracts were few and far between, and very dull maintenance type stuff. Investing in training has never been a good way of getting into SAP - customers demand experience.

[colinrobinson]

Strangely enough, I hit my best ever period contracting in early 2000, when a lot of other people seemed to be struggling. there were a glut of internet bank startups (IF and a few others) which drove rates for environment/config management and test management through the roof. Had rates in the 800s for a year or so and rates in general above 600 for about five years. Made up for not getting on the Y2K bandwagon I suppose.

One friend of mine built an extension which doubled the size of his house with Y2K money and still calls the extension 'The Millenium Wing'

Seem to remember SAP and ERP being the thing to get into next, never did though re-training cost seemed prohibitive.

[Archangel]

Load of fuss over nothing. Gave IT a bad reputation for years afterwards for ripping customers off.

My team had to amend over 3000 assembler and COBOL programs otherwise the financial institution I was contracted at would have gone under.

Simple stuff like mortgage applications would not have worked (we won't lend to people -38 years old).

Interest calculations would have credited mortgage borrowers with 99364 days interest and debited savers with the same.

Etc etc hardly a lot of fuss about nothing

[TestMangler]

Rates dropped drastically afterwards though and have never recovered. had to keep the merc for a fair few years.

Strangely enough, I hit my best ever period contracting in early 2000, when a lot of other people seemed to be struggling. there were a glut of internet bank startups (IF and a few others) which drove rates for environment/config management and test management through the roof. Had rates in the 800s for a year or so and rates in general above 600 for about five years. Made up for not getting on the Y2K bandwagon I suppose.

One friend of mine built an extension which doubled the size of his house with Y2K money and still calls the extension 'The Millenium Wing'

[colinrobinson]

Made absolutely bugger all out of Y2K (was an OS/2 server techie at the time) but remember all the old geezers who had worked in Cobol et al years before, driving to contracts in new Mercs and telling agents not to phone them with gigs at less than £650 a day. Took great delight in telling them that their next chance to make some money would be in 8000 years time

Did actually hear a PM say "Makes you wonder how they coped in the year 999" though

Rates dropped drastically afterwards though and have never recovered. had to keep the merc for a fair few years.

[BrilloPad]

Good for you, prompt and early trolling.

I was post 12 so hardly early. I was not trolling - I mean it.

If you disagree - you are entitled to do so. I worked in 1999 testing loads of stuff that were just never going to fail. The users resented the huge payments made - not just to me.

Anywhere with any "real" danger - like ICI - turned off all their paint machines at end Dec and restarted them in early Jan.

[woohoo]

Load of fuss over nothing. Gave IT a bad reputation for years afterwards for ripping customers off.

Good for you, prompt and early trolling.

[VectraMan]

The web forum software the company I worked for used showed the date as 19100 instead of 2000, but that took 5 minutes to fix and was the only issue. Load of fuss over nothing.

[BrilloPad]

Load of fuss over nothing. Gave IT a bad reputation for years afterwards for ripping customers off.

[Paddy]

Most problems were caused by IT departments testing the servers by setting the date to 31.12.1999. The rollover worked but caused havoc when they reset it to the current 1999 date.