No, it wasn’t like that. Remember that while computer technology was fairly mainstream, it wasn’t nearly as engrained into our lives as today. So people were talking about a worst-case scenario that involved technological things: potential power outages, administrations maybe shutting down, some public transportation maybe shutting down, … To me, it felt like people were getting ready for being potentially majorly inconvenienced, but that they weren’t at all freaking out.
I do remember the first few days of January 2000 felt like a good fun joke. “All that for this!”
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. Or if all the sudden flights across the country/world were cancelled because air traffic controllers didn’t have accurate information or the ticketing systems weren’t showing any reservations.
Water treatment for me. There was a water treatment plant test where the computer went “No treatment in 100 years? Better dump ALL the chemicals then!” LA had a problem with raw sewage release.
No, it wasn’t like that. Remember that while computer technology was fairly mainstream, it wasn’t nearly as engrained into our lives as today. So people were talking about a worst-case scenario that involved technological things: potential power outages, administrations maybe shutting down, some public transportation maybe shutting down, … To me, it felt like people were getting ready for being potentially majorly inconvenienced, but that they weren’t at all freaking out.
I do remember the first few days of January 2000 felt like a good fun joke. “All that for this!”
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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. Or if all the sudden flights across the country/world were cancelled because air traffic controllers didn’t have accurate information or the ticketing systems weren’t showing any reservations.
People would have lost their f*cking minds.
Nuclear reactor meltdown was high on my list.
I vageuly remember people kept on going on about planes falling out of the sky. “Welp, it’s 1900 now, guess I need to ignore all input and nose dive.”
Water treatment for me. There was a water treatment plant test where the computer went “No treatment in 100 years? Better dump ALL the chemicals then!” LA had a problem with raw sewage release.
Scared the hell out me. Water was my #1 priority.