As the sun moves westward on January 1, 2000 and the date shifts silently within millions of computerized systems, we will begin to experience our computer dependent world in a new way. At the stroke of midnight, the new millennium heralds the greatest challenge to modern society that we have yet to face as a planetary community. Whether we experience this as chaos or social transformation will be influenced by what we do immediately.

What is theY2K (Year 2000) problem? When computer systems were built in the 1960's and 1970's computer hardware was too expensive. To reduce costs, programmers looked for ways to reduce data storage requirements. It was common for year to be stored in databases in tw

Why is this a problem now? The systems built during this period were not very user friendly, but the computers were most critical to business operations. Because these systems of the 1960's and 1970's were not designed to run in multiple centuries, most will either produce incorrect information or simply fail at the end of the century. It may not sound like much effort to fix these machines, but in fact, it involves a great deal of time and expense. The Gartner Group, a respected information technology researcher, estimates that it will cost as much as $600 billion worldwide. If the problem is not addressed in time, the consequences could be catastrophic.

Audience Note: This essay would be found on the front page of the Dallas Morning News. This topic will mainly effect major business owners or big corporations.

o digit fields rather than four digits.

Zuckerman, M.J. "Do's and Don'ts of Y2K." USA Today [Arlington] 24 Nov. 1999:1.

There is currently widespread awareness that Y2K involves more than the failure of an individual's personal computer, or an incorrect date in a spreadsheet. "It is now widely understood that Y2K could affect the lives of individuals, but exactly in what manner is unknown (Associated P 1)." Today computers are used to operate most mechanical equipment that affects every aspect of our lives. In 1991 the IRS has 88,000 programs on eighty mainframe computers to debug. By the end of 1997 they

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Approximate Word count = 973
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)