Workers will consolidate dangerous materials in a handful of buildings and extra security guards will watch over the site New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Workers once built nuclear weapons at the U.S. Department of Energy plant eight miles south of Boulder. Now they're cleaning up the contaminated site, which could be done as early as 2006. Much of that work depends on sophisticated electronic equipment, from alarms to radioactivity detectors. Now-infamous, that bug needs little introduction.
Electronic equipment contains tiny microprocessors that keep track of time.
Until relatively recently, years were recorded as just two digits. What will happen depends on specific programming directions that are inaccessible to users and often even to manufacturers. Old databases still in use were put onto new computers or translated so they'll work with new software. Computers have been replaced or upgraded, and alarm systems have been tested extensively. In simulations of Y2K emergencies on site, workers used the radios in that limited mode to understand the devices' limits.