What is the millennium bug ?
Where does Y2K occur? To answer this question, we need to clarify the definition and causes of the millennium bug, which is a program error caused by incomplete representation of years and dates in computers, and consists of three aspects:
1. Because only two digits are used to represent the year, which can lead to erroneous date calculations across the centuries. -For example, subtracting 98 from 02 results in 96, while subtracting 1998 from 2002 results in 4.
2. Operational errors can be caused by special dates (9/9/99) conflicting with specially defined strings in the computer.
3. The leap year problem, i.e. whether it is possible to calculate correctly that the year 2000 is a leap year, with the day 29 in February.
Based on these three aspects, it is safe to say that the Y2K bug is likely to strike in all places where intelligent programs are used for date-related processing and manipulation. For example, for an elevator that opens during working hours from Monday to Friday and closes at the end of the day on Saturday and Sunday, because it can open and close at regular intervals, there must be an intelligent program in the elevator, and at the same time, there must be date-related operations in the intelligent program in order to be able to compute the day of the week of each day of each month of the year, so when 2000 years come, if the elevator, because it uses only two digits to indicate the year, will have an attack on the elevator. When the year 2000 comes, if the elevator uses only two digits to indicate the year, it will recognize the year 2000 as 1900, which will bring about the calendar calculation error and cause the automatic function of the elevator to be disordered. Therefore, it should be pointed out that the millennium bug does not only exist in computer systems that we are familiar with, but also in devices that use smart chips, as long as there is any operation related to the date in them, they may also cause the millennium bug to strike when the year 2000 comes. The Y2K bug is not only found in the applications and software we write, but also in the operating system, hardware, and other components of the computer, which use a variety of date-related programs (such as the BIOS in microcomputer hardware), and may be affected by the Y2K bug.
Where is the bug ?
So where will the Y2K bug primarily strike? As far as the world situation is concerned, the Y2K bug mainly focuses on two areas:
One is the application system on the mainframe equipped with earlier (put into use before about the mid-80s), such as the application programs running on the IBM 4381, IBM AS/400, etc. These machine systems are used internationally. These machine systems are used internationally quite early, so its application programs above after more than ten years of development and development of its size has been very large, for example, the United States of America's AT & T Telecommunications Company, its internal there are more than 360 million lines of applications need to detect the existence of the Y2K problem, which is indeed a great deal of work, so to solve the Y2K problem has caused great trouble.
Another aspect of Y2K that is prone to attack is embedded devices. The so-called embedded devices, that is to say, devices in the use of intelligent chips in the system, due to the low price of intelligent chips, the current embedded devices have become ubiquitous, by the production line, a large number of automated instrumentation, automobiles, elevators, alarm systems, fire detectors to the medical equipment to the telephone exchange, air conditioning, traffic lights, thermostats, etc., can be described as infiltrating into every corner of daily life. The programs applied in these equipments have often been solidified into the components, so once a product uses only two digits to indicate the year, it will trigger the Y2K problem, and to replace these chips, it is often necessary to replace the whole system, which will result in financial and operational difficulties and make solving the Y2K problem even more troublesome, and also one of the hidden dangers of not being able to solve the Y2K problem on time.
What happens to the PCs that we commonly use?
From a hardware point of view, the Y2K problem exists mainly because the microcomputer's BIOS fails to automate the transition to Y2K, which is relatively simple. Otherwise the problem will leave you scrambling and woefully out of control once it kicks in. Specifically, there is a real-time system clock in the microcomputer hardware, which relies on the microcomputer motherboard button battery as a power source and power to keep running at all times so that the microcomputer in the shutdown is also able to keep the time forward. This real-time system clock time value is saved to the motherboard BIOS memory (CMOS). When the microcomputer starts, the microcomputer operating system from the BIOS that time memory to read the current time, including four-digit year and the month, day, hour, minute, second, etc., from then on, as long as the machine is not shut down, the operating system's clock will be microcomputer external power supply (no longer on the motherboard button batteries) as the power to run forward alone and saved in the microcomputer's memory (no longer in the memory of the BIOS) . The microcomputer's Y2K problem is that, although the RTC-realtime system clock uses four digits to represent the year, the first two digits of the year data (century information, such as "19", "20", etc.) are not linked to the last two digits, i.e., they are not linked to the last two digits, i.e., they are not linked to the last two digits. However, the first two digits of the year data (century information, such as "19", "20", etc.) are not connected with the last two digits, that is, when the last two digits change from "99" to "00", the first two digits can not be changed from "19" to "20" by advancing the digits. "20", so the next year after 1999 in the RTC would be 1900, thus causing the year 2000 problem.
And for the current application of the operating system (such as DOS 5.0 or above, Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Windows 98, and Linux, SCO Unix, Windows NT) clocks, the year is expressed in four digits, so there will be no year 2000 problem. However, the problem is that there are small utilities, tools or function calls that come with the operating system that can cause Y2K attacks due to incomplete year representation, but it is safe to assume that as long as you don't use these small utilities or tools, you won't have the Y2K problem. If you want to know in detail what utilities, tools or function calls in these operating systems have the year 2000 problem, you can go to my site (/~year2000) of the microcomputer Y2K and industry support in the two columns of the query, at the same time, the site also has on the microcomputer year 2000 problem of the aspect of the detailed discussion.
In short, for our own use of the microcomputer, the system aspects of the year 2000 problem is relatively simple, the difficulty should also be above the huge scale of its applications.
How did Y2K disrupt our lives?
If the Y2K problem is not solved in time, then our lives may be disrupted in some unexpected ways. ......
Financial industry: By the year 2000, computers inside banks may interpret the year 2000 as 1900, causing confusion in interest calculations and even automatically erasing all records. All records will be erased; ATMs will refuse to accept "00" year ATM cards;
Insurance: Insurance companies may miscalculate the number of years for each insurance policy.
Telecommunications: If you made a three-minute phone call at 23:59 on December 31, 1999, your bill from the telephone office may show (100 years-3 minutes);
Electricity: Hawaiian Electric Company in the United States once did a practical experiment by inputting the year 00, which resulted in the power plant stopping operation automatically and, in some cases, changes in voltage and frequency. also occurred in the voltage and frequency changes, resulting in a total blackout of users, electrical failure and even burned; the U.S. Federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission is more worried about the United States of America's more than a hundred nuclear power plants in the instrumentation due to the year 2000 problem out of control caused by the leakage of nuclear radiation and other disasters.
The tax system: The IRS computers may think you owe 100 years' worth of taxes and send astronomical back-tax notices.
Pharmaceuticals: Medical equipment such as life-saving systems or surveillance systems could crash, leading to life-threatening injuries to patients, as well as failure of blood bank management, doctor's orders and medical records, and equipment management.
Transportation: Air traffic control was completely paralyzed and flights were grounded due to the failure of computers controlling radar.
Recently, the Y2K problem has become a headache for major U.S. automobile companies. It turns out that U.S. automobiles have a definite useful life (10 years, for example), and will automatically refuse to start after that period of time. Trouble in some just produced a higher degree of automation of the car, its internal control chip is still with two decimal numbers to indicate the year, then to the year 2000, as the year became 00 years, and the factory date (such as 1998) a comparison, but also has been running for 98 years, the car will of course automatically refuse to start. The United States Citibank (CITYBANK) in its subordinate cars for the year 2000 problem test, they found this problem.
How about that, even if you haven't bought a computer yet, you don't think Y2K has nothing to do with you. However, with the rapid progress being made in solving the Y2K problem in all walks of life, it's almost impossible for the above problem to occur in our lives