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Whining About Y2K (12/10/98)
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So, uh, how many of you are blissfully uninvolved in any Year 2000 shenanigans? (From a day-job perspective, we're not, hence the rant-- please bear with us.) It's a darn shame and dreadfully unfair, but just because you had the good sense to choose a Mac doesn't mean that you can ignore the Y2K bug entirely. Unless the company you work for does its payroll on Macs, for example, when 2000 rolls around you may suddenly find yourself sans paycheck, since the system thinks you won't start working there for another 95 years or so. Then there's the banks, the power grids, all that good stuff that holds the fabric of society together. And don't even get us started on the truly frightening stuff, like the reports of massively non-Y2K-compliant computer systems controlling the world's nuclear weapons...
Not that we're trying to be alarmist, or anything. It's just that no one really knows what's going to happen when the clocks strike midnight on New Year's Eve, 2000. Some say it'll be armageddon, other think that what few computer systems fail will be more of a nuisance than anything else. Just about the only thing that's certain is that your Mac stands a much better chance of taking the whole thing in stride than many of the computer systems out there; as Apple's Year 2000 Compliance Statement makes clear, Macs have been aware that the century was going to end since the first one rolled off the assembly lines back in 1984. Sure, that doesn't guarantee that your third-party software is free from any Y2K-related bugs, but in our personal experience with this stuff, as a general rule, Mac software seems to be put together by people with more of an eye for little details than those who build software for certain other platforms. (Plus, Mac programmers would presumably use the Mac Toolbox date functions-- which handle the year 2000 just fine-- rather than reinvent the wheel and write their own date code.)
Don't you wish everyone used Macs? Especially your bank? And the electric company? And the U.S. government-- particularly the Department of Defense? Hey, look on the bright side-- on January 1st, 2000, while the rest of the world is looting and pillaging the darkened streets as the missiles streak across the night sky, you can use the last two hours of charge in your PowerBook batteries to update your ClarisWorks-based CD catalog database, secure in the knowledge that it'll all function just fine. ;-)
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SceneLink (1208)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 12/10/98 episode: December 10, 1998: Apple's getting ready to close up shop-- but not for a well-deserved rest. Meanwhile, the latest skinny on the P1 consumer portable is that its much-ballyhooed wireless Internet access may be kaput, and your Mac is probably safe from the Y2K bug, but that's scant relief to the billions of us who rely on people that chose to use other systems...
Other scenes from that episode: 1206: Down for the Holidays (12/10/98) Hey, have you been following the saga of the build-to-order moratorium at the Apple Store? Last month a notice appeared there stating that there was an early December deadline by which to place custom-built orders, though Apple would continue to sell pre-built systems through the end of the year... 1207: Reality Check Bounced (12/10/98) Let's face it: the high-tech world changes faster than any other business we can think of, which makes trying to follow all the rumors sort of a futile endeavor. After all, any rumors of technological advances or new-fangled hardware are often talking about products that aren't expected to be unveiled for six months or longer, which is almost a lifetime in the fast-paced tech world...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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