The letters Y and K separated by the number 2 made a very interesting word just before the year 2000. Y2K was really a shorthand term with a potentially scary meaning back in 1998 and 1999. Y2K is an abbreviation for “The Year 2000.”

It was most often used when talking about potential computer problems that were anticipated with the world moving into the 21st century. Back in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, when computers were first built, the designers of the programs that made the computers run used only two numbers instead of four to indicate the year. For example, 1998 was 98. This was done as a cost-saving measure. In the 1990s, many computer programmers continued using the two numbers instead of four.

As we moved toward the year 2000, it was realized that a massive computer problem could occur, because all computer processors and software using the two-digit feature were going to stop moving forward and revert back to 1900, instead of to 2000. Fears were that all computer-operated equipment manufactured with a computer processor, like televisions and microwave ovens, would fail because the computer memory would not recognize the date 00.

Some really negative people were frightening folks with comments about the world going dark at midnight on January 1, 2000, since electrical systems were operated by computers. Some were saying that the world would become chaotic and that money in the stock market would disappear since those monies had not been around in 1900, leaving investors penniless.

Well, here we are several years after Y2K and we now know, that at midnight, January 1, 2000, very little changed. Many computer companies spent the last few years of the 20th century fixing the glitch that panicked the world. An interesting side effect from all of this effort came as a large increase in computer service companies. These companies moved from being small businesses started to repair a potentially frightening computer problem, to the bright technological future we see ahead of us.

Some people feel that the integrated technology companies in India started with this one computer problem being addressed. Many feel that the New York Stock Exchange was able to reassemble its systems shortly after the 9/11 disaster because of the related Y2K repair work they had done.

January 1, 2000 marked a very important date in the history of the world. It moved into the 21st Century with technology designed to make our lives easier and let us work smarter, all because of Y2K.

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