Just a thought... ten years ago (my God - is it really ten years?) we were dithering and wailing and predicting the end of the world as computer systems would come crashing down due to the Year 2000 bug - known as Y2K.
The problem was that most computer systems had been written with the year only having 2 digits instead of 4 and as 1999 became 2000, to most computers the year would change from 99 to 00, causing the computer to assume 1900 and close down systems because they were 100 years overdue for a service!
They now say, with a great deal of scepticism, that computer bods created a load of hype and scaremongering and that, as not many instances of disaster occurred, we must have made it up to become rich on consultancies.
But I seem to remember some bloody hard work at the time, as people frantically re-wrote systems and checked whether the computers we had would work or not in the new Millenium.
I had just changed jobs and had been at my new college for just 2 months before the big day. I was taken to see an ancient mainframe computer that was controlling the heating and environment system for some large greenhouses at my place of work.
"Will they still work next year?" I was asked. How the hell should I know, I thought and installed a fool-proof get-out system on my keyboard just in case...
