r, the computer will subtract 57 from 00 and say that he is -57 years old. Many owners of home computers feel this “bug” won’t affect their personal computer but it’s expected that up to 80% of all personal PC’s will fail when the year 2000 arrives. More than 80,000,000 PC’s will be shut down December 31, 1999 with no problems as workers leave their office for the weekend. However, on January 1, 2000, some 80,000,000 PCs will fail as systems are turned on and “booted up” (Believe Jager). Fixing the problem seems to be difficult a difficult task, as all applications from spreadsheets to email will be affected. Should an individual replace his current computer with one that is Year 2000 compatible or simply replace the RTC (Real Time Clock), the BIOS, or the OS? Even if the hardware problem is fixed is all the software used may not be adequate to make the transition.The answers to these questions and others like these cannot be answered with a simple “yes” or “no.” For one thing, the “leading experts” in the computer world cannot agree that there is even a problem, let alone discuss the extent to which it will impact society and the business world. CNN correspondent Jed Duvall illustrates another possible “problem” scenario. Suppose someone on the East Coast, at 2 minutes after midnight in New York City on January 1, 2000 decides to make a call to a friend in California, where it is still 1999 because of the time zone difference. With the current configurations in the phone company’s computers, the New Yorker will be billed from ‘00 to ‘99, a phone call lasting for 99 years (Duvall).Say a deposit of $100 was made into a savings account that pays 5% interest annually. The following year the depositor decides to close the account. The bank computer figures the $100 was there for one year at 5% interest, yielding $105, si...
