Many of the Nation's computers were built in a fashion permitting the entry of only two numerals for the year designation in order to save money on computer memory. These computers, including many microchips and microprocessors, can only interpret the last two numerals of a four digit year designation. Thus, the year 2000 becomes the year 1900. The embedded chips operate many types of non-computer equipment such as security systems, HVAC, elevators, telephone equipment, ATM machines, cars and gas pumps.
Date calculations are essential to most applications.
The basic functions involving dates include calculating, comparing and sequencing. In the year 2000, however, they will subtract 65 from 00 and get a negative number. Although major banks have been addressing the problem for a couple of years, even some industry giants have only begun to fix their problems in the last 12 months and some are finding out that they didn't budget enough this year for the current work which needs to be done. The computer languages used today are different from those used decades ago. Even with expert help, finding and fixing the problem is not easy.