I am listening to old Art Bell radio shows before Y2K, where he had all of these "experts" on who were so sure that the year 2000 was going to be a disaster for our technology and infrastructure. Banks would be closed, the power grids would fail, planes would no longer fly, and our cars wouldn't start - and if they did, the gas stations would be closed anyhow. What are your recollections of Y2K? I think, for most people, they barely noticed it. I owned an ambulance company then, and our LifePak 5 heart monitor/defibrillators would no longer maintain an accurate date after Y2K, but LifePak had come out with the LP-10 by then, and most companies were upgrading anyhow, the LP-10 being the next pre-hospital model after the LP-5. Because of the Y2K problem, LifePak was offering a nice discount on the upgrade, so we did that. That was the only problem that I witnessed from Y2K. Overall, it was a dud.
@Ken Anderson that sure was a tense time for some. I worked that night at the Ethanol Plant ( which is pretty much run by computers ) and we were in the control room waiting for the FAIL! When it didn't happen, someone said it was probably a 'time zone' thing, just wait, it'll hit... Best thing was I got a nice generator for dirt cheap right after that.
I remember all the "stockpiling" people were doing. There were so many Y2K Survival books out and articles on the Internet. I got a little extra money out of the bank, bought a few gallon jugs of water and some extra bread and peanut butter, etc. (just like I would prepare for a hurricane) and made sure we had some candles and fresh batteries...and then just waited like most everyone else to see what was or wasn't going to happen.
I remember the near panic of IT people, but it seemed to be specfic software problems. Data that needed to differentiate between 1900 and 2000. The embedded chip thing was a farce from the get go, imo. Seriously a chip made in 1990 was good to at least until 2090 and probably beyond, unless it had been set by the end user... then maybe a problem, but only if the century digits were required. Granted there were a lot of applications that needed to know the day of the month and the month of the year, but the actual year... very few. But there was a lot of money made during the runup and when it didn't materialize... a lot of money was lost.
Seems like it was yesterday. Amazing what changes close to 20 years makes. I wasn't worried about it and it just passed.
Ah y2k. I celebrated the new year as I always did by being creative. I made a sign out of cardboard and white christmas lights that read 2000 then hung it outside my door and set the timer for 11:59 at which time it would automatic come on and start flashing/blinking 2000. Around 12:10 my doorbell rang and it was my youngest son. He loved it and thought it was a unique idea.