Sloppy, lazy programmers are responsible for Y2K problems says specialist Jocelyn Amon, and about a third of them are still creating bad code despite all the hoopla and the fact Y2Kday is just four months away. ComputerWorld says Amon spent six hours searching Internet web pages and was able to find over 300 Y2K-related errors. The most common excuses, that two digit years were used to save memory or that the authors felt the code wouldn't still be in use in the year 2000, are obviously no longer valid. Legend has it some computers will keel over because ancient programmers used nines to do all sorts of magical stuff in their software, from destroying file systems to rolling back their calendars to 1900. Many consider the nines problem to be a myth, but find it interesting that the International Y2K Cooperation Center and the North American Electric Reliability Council have scheduled major exercises for September 9.
Cynics suggest the date was selected so the nasty nines can be blamed if something goes wrong.
Despite concerted efforts by trade groups and government, most small businesses are dealing with the Y2K problem by ignoring it, according to the Small Business Administration. The general attitude of small businesspersons seems to be that western civilization won't end if their systems aren't Y2K compliant, and if it does, at least they didn't waste money trying to fix things in advance. A perfect companion to the KGB Y2K Beanie, a Japanese company is now marketing the Armageddon Brassiere. The undergarment contains an electronic sensor that warns wearers of objects falling from the sky due to Y2K-related failures. The news release did not detail the alert mechanism used.