All during the year 1999 we were looking forward to the year 2000, or as it was commonly called, Y2K. Actually that's a bit of a misnomer. In computer lingo, K is actually 2 raised to the 10th power or 1024. We won't actually have Y2K until the year 2048. But that's almost like the argument about whether the new millennium began in the year 2000 or 2001. We all know that there was no year zero. So, for literalists the new millennium will begin in 2001, but most of us will observe the change on January 1, 2000.
But what's in a number anyway. A year is a year is a year. When I was a little boy, I decided I wanted to live long enough to see two things. The first was Haley's Comet and the second was the year 2000. Well, if the year 2000 is as big a bust as was Haley's Comet, I guess I will have lived for naught. Speaking of "naught", how should we refer to the year 2000? Would it be "Aught-aught?" For example, we always referred to 1903 as "Aught-three." You see there were important decisions to be made. However, most of our time in 1999 was spent on deciding what to do with our president, Bill Clinton. Of course, we ended up impeaching him.
The big problem we faced was reprogramming computers to accept the year 2000. Many of the old programs used two digits for storing the year, and the program would affix a "19" in the front. In the end this reprogramming was a good thing, since many old programs needed to be replaced anyway.
The question we should ask now is, "Will computer programmers have learned their lesson, or will they go back to the lazy way of representing years?" For example, what will happen when we get to the year 10,000. Then we will have to make room for a fifth digit. Perhaps we will no longer store numbers with individual digits by then. Who knows, maybe we won't even use the same numbering system for counting years by that time. Gee, I would love to live until the year 10,000. Maybe I would get a few more cracks at Haley's comet by then. Oh, the heck with it. Who cares anyway?
Copyright © Jay D Weaver - December 27, 1999