Remembering The Bug
So this well-dressed man walks into my office one day and starts telling me about the collapse of western civilisation.
"Once the power is switched off and the lights go out," he says, "there will be chaos. Traffic lights will fail and cars will crash. Hospitals won't be able to cope. The looters will be on the streets, armies will be mobilised and the governments will be operating from secret underground bunkers..."
"OK, "I said, "I get the point. Please check my computer."
Ten minutes later he had slapped a big blue sticker on the lid of my laptop and the world was just a wee bit safer.
Apparently.
This, of course, was more than ten years ago and the scaremonger in the suit was one of those thousands of people drafted in by organisations like the ´óÏó´«Ã½ to check that our computer systems were "Y2K Compliant". They would wander into offices and when people complained that they were too busy to stop working they would come out with their well-rehearsed declarations of doom.
As we stand on the thresh-hold of a shiny new decade, I wonder how many of you remember the Millennium Bug. It was one of the big talking points in the months leading up to the year 2000. As I recall, the problem began when techy folk realised that most software was designed to recognise years in just two digits. So, it was claimed, when the year flipped from '99' to '00' our computers would go into meltdown and the rest of us would be flagging down passing handcarts and thumbing a lift to Hell.
At ´óÏó´«Ã½ Scotland it was all taken very seriously. A special uninterruptible power supply was installed at out H.Q at Queen Margaret Drive and staff leave was cancelled for the Hogmanay period. Those required to work on that night were given special security passes and, indeed, an extra payment.
I was the Editor responsible for the Hogmanay show that year and we had drawn up a running order filled with music and entertainment with links to countries in other time zones where the new Millennium would already have begun.
Unbeknownst to many though, an alternative service had also been planned and this involved one of my colleagues sitting in a studio out at the Blackhill Transmitter. I remember him telling me that he had to wear a hard hat because there were huge icicles hanging from the transmitter pylon.
His job - should the bug start to bite - was to keep station on air so that our news journalists could provide a service of emergency information. Or, if things were only mildly apocalyptic, he could just play some records. I would love to see that playlist!
It was, of course, a huge anti-climax. , ready to report on computer crashes around the globe. I can't be certain, but I'm sure he ended up telling us about a faulty cash machine in Italy and a set of traffic lights blinking in Japan.
So was it real or was it a huge hoax?
Certainly the bug fixers made a pile of cash out of this global fear and to this day they would claim that the measures taken actually prevented bigger problems on the night.
I do recall a few of these experts saying that maybe they had got the date wrong and maybe they should continue with their work for another year or so. Just to be on the safe side, you understand.
To which the rest of us said "On you bike, sunshine!" and vowed never to talk about the bug until ten years had passed.
Tomorrow night, as the digits slip from '09' to '10' there seems to be no equivalent sense of foreboding. Personally I'd welcome the discovery of a limited bug which knocked out social networks and online gaming sites for a week or so.
Just imagine - all over the country teenage sons and daughters would emerge blinking from their bedrooms and would reconnect with family members. Seven days of laughter and conversation would ensue before the netbooks and Nintendos called them back to their screens.
The 'Happy New Year Bug', I'd call it.
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