The study asked quality professionals about their involvement in the work to cope with the Year 2000 problem. Background The use of two digits to indicate the year made sense in light of the fact that in the early days of computers, storage space was a costly and limited resource. With the quantum leaps in storage media technology, this is no longer a consideration. For example, in 1983 an IBM PC was shipped with a 64 kilobyte hard drive. Today, it is normal for IBM-compatible computers to be shipped with 2 gigabyte hard drives.
Many software applications use time-sensitive calculations.
Mortgage payments, interest calculations, insurance policy due dates, funds transfers, lease records, property sales, real estate transactions, flight schedules and birth records are just a few examples of the instances in our daily lives where the date is important. The problem is not confined just to software. Hardware designed for metering, scheduling and monitoring often uses embedded chips that contain date and time information. Embedded chips in production equipment may cause manufacturing processes to shut down at the change in century. The Kraft Corporation has already felt the effects of the Year 2000 problem.