Definition
The Year 2000 problem, simply stated, is the inability of some computers to correctly interpret the date when the century rolls to 2000. This is because dates are traditionally expressed as the last two digits of the year. Although we can tell the difference between 1900 and 2000 from the context in which its used, to a computer 00 is an imponderable.

Why do some computers have this problem?
Personal Computers determine the date from the combination of a clock chip and the BIOS (basic input-output system) recorded on a chip. Older BIOS chips may not have the programming to correctly interpret the century, based on the date obtained from the clock chip. When this happens, the computer will usually interpret the date following 12/31/1999 as 01/01/1900.

How could this have happened?
In the early days of electronic computing, storage was very expensive. To conserve space, programmers recorded dates as MM/DD/YY (actually MMDDYY). Recording dates in this fashion became habit and continued even as storage costs dropped. Remember, storage costs today are one ten-thousandth of what they were 35 years ago. Where four digit years were desirable, the programs were set up to automatically plug in the "19".

What is the impact of this problem?
Computers are everywhere. From the watch on your wrist to the checkout stand at the local market, computers are now part of everyday life. The potential for problems at the turn of the century does exist.

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