Off-topic chat, page-51

A few people have mentioned Y2K. 

I have worked in software development for 30 years. I got my most lucrative contract of all working in Tokyo Japan in 1998/99 on massive amount of mods to upgrade the systems(3) from a 6 char date to an 8 char date. Lived in a hotel for 6 months. It was done and ready by June 1999.

All so that a computer will treat 20000101 as coming after 19991231  instead of 000101 being treated as coming before 991231, and the date of every other transaction for that matter. 

Every client of the software company I worked for before and after this had a release upgrade to handle an 8 char date.    Every client ! Yes it was a busy period !  

The world responded to an imminent crisis and the crisis was averted.  Averted so well in fact that the general consensus now is that it was a hoax in the first place !

Just think of every single program and update and report starting off the year 2000  on January 1st with every transaction being treated by a computer as having occurred in the year 1900.  Before all history of every bit of business ever done. 

Where would the general ledger posting go ?  in the past ?    Can that be a good thing ?  I don't think so.  Your entering a sales order for 10 years ago ? invalid.  Your forecasting stock and want to see demand from 100 years ago ?  sorry, not found. Error ! 

If all the computers in the all the companies and banks and stock exchanges and govt depts all start rejecting everything because the transaction occurred in the past, all at the same time ?

Just think about it folks. 

Disaster averted.