Year 2000 Compliance

There have been many questions raised about the year 2000 and what affect it will have on computer systems worldwide. We have attempted to answer below the most common questions and what they mean to our customers and products.

Q: What is Y2K or the Millennium Bug?

The year 2000 issue, also commonly known as The Millennium Bug, has to do with the way computers recognize dates. In the earliest days of computer development, programmers did their best to keep programs from using too much memory. One easy way to save space was to use only two digits to represent the date. 1997, for example, would be 97.

A lot of computers and programs are still in use today that use the two-digit date format, especially larger mainframe systems found in large corporations and government offices. When the year 2000 arrives, there is a great chance that most of these programs and computers could assume that the two-digit date of 00 refers to 1900 and not 2000.

Q: What will happen if a computer thinks it's 1900 instead of 2000?

It depends on the computer and the programs being run on it. For a typical home computer, the only consequence may be the inconvenience of having the date being wrong on saved documents, but it generally would not affect how well the system works. Date-sensitive programs, like those used for accounting, etc., may produce error messages and malfunction.

Corporate and government mainframes are the systems most at stake. They often deal with very date-sensitive information -- like payrolls, insurance payments, credit reports, etc. -- that rely on having accurate dates. It has been theorized that the Millennium Bug could affect prison computer systems and schedule prisoners for parole the day after they arrive, or that systems in control of state benefits could malfunction to list the age of recipients as negative numbers.

Beyond computers, date-sensitive microprocessors can be found in items such as traffic signals and automobiles. This could lead to situations where a car may constantly flash a warning light on the dashboard mistakenly believing that it is -100 years overdue for maintenance.

Q: How is the problem being fixed?

Once again, the solution depends on how big the problem may be. Companies and organizations with older systems and mainframes have the choice to either hire programmers to comb through the millions of lines of computer code looking for the problem or replace all of the computers that may be affected. Either choice is costly and time-consuming.

Most home users will have very little trouble dealing with the year 2000. Many computers made within the last few years are already Year 2000 Compliant. Other software and hardware manufacturers will or have already issued upgrades to correct the problem.

Q: How will it affect Mustek products?

Mustek’s scanners and digital cameras will not be adversely affected by the year 2000 since they do not transfer date-sensitive material to the computer. The TWAIN drivers and internal programming of the scanners/cameras are not reliant on the date being reported by the computer, therefore they could function even if the date were listed as 1900 instead of 2000. The only ill effect a Mustek product might encounter from the year 2000 is if the system that is running it is having trouble from the Millennium Bug.

Q: Why all the fuss about the year 2000?

Simply put, the systems most affected by the Millennium Bug are going to have to spend a lot of time and money to correct it. The people in charge of these systems have been aware of the issue for several years and there is a worldwide effort underway to correct it before any serious problems occur. Combine this effort with the anticipation and paranoia surrounding the year 2000, and you have a headlines-grabbing issue.

Q: What should I do about Year 2000 Compliance?

Presumably, you are reading this because you were checking with the software and hardware manufacturers of your computer equipment to see if they were Y2K compliant. If this is all new to you, the best thing to do is check the web sites of your computer manufacturer and of any date-sensitive software you may have and see what they are doing/have done to make sure their products are ready for the year 2000. We have also provided several links before to more information on the subject. Note: These links are provided for information only. Mustek takes no responsibility for the material presented.

Federal Government. This web site contains information on what the Federal Government is doing about Y2K Compliance.

Washington State. The state of Washington has a very nice Y2K page that contains a survey of hardware and software manufacturers and what they are doing to prepare for the year 2000.

Millennium Countdown. The Greenwich Millennium site lets you see how many days, hours, minutes and seconds away January 1, 2001 is.

Millennium Trivia

The year 2000 is not the beginning of the next millennium, but actually the end of the current one. The next millennium begins on January 1, 2001 in the Gregorian calendar commonly used in most of the world.

There are over 40 calendars in use today around the world, some of which are thousands of years ahead of or behind the Gregorian calendar.

The year 2000 is a leap year.