One thorny obstacle is finding the millions of tiny microprocessors embedded unobtrusively in the equipment of power plants and similar systems used by other industries. Personal computers are not immune. Inexcusably, many newer programs and computers were programmed without regard for 2000. The worst of the alarmists are predicting the collapse of industries ranging from electric power and telecommunications to banking and transportation, and they are planning to head for the hills to avoid the food shortages, bank closures and riots that they expect will follow. Others are pooh-poohing all the hullabaloo, confident that the experts will take care of matters.
Nobody knows for sure what's going to happen.
But the best analysts are saying that we will likely experience at least some disruptions, individually or collectively, and that some of these will be serious. Fortunately, you can take steps to prepare for the problems you can't solve. And if you have a PC, you can take other steps to solve problems that may affect it. First, check with whomever you bought your computer from to see whether it is Y2K-compliant. Most newer ones are, but even PCs a couple of years old may need an upgrade to their BIOS, a chip that includes instructions for handling dates and other operations.