• FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    most of the concern for Y2K was actually about old systems. keep in mind, the IRS, for example, still runs servers with COBOL on it today, as their main database. it works, and it’s reliable. They’re far from the only group (read: banks, government agencies, hospitals,) who still do so.

    those systems… they had no idea what would happen and had to figure something out. most programs at the time didn’t actually acount for the first two digits of the year. 1922 and 2022 would have been indiferentiable to those programs. for then-modern systems, it was a simple patch. For the old equipment… not so much…

    • cybersandwich@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Exactly, the systems that were at the biggest risk were the older, more entrenched systems that were spun up by the government, banks, military, hospitals.

      This are obviously critical (cyber) infrastructure for our modern society. Imagine waking on Jan 1st and half of Americans lost access to their bank accounts or their accounts read $0.00. People would have lost their f*cking minds.