Based on your information about various industries/government agencies, what would be our situation on 1/1/2000 if nothing had been done? How bad would the failures have been, and how long would it have taken to prepare workarounds?

Given that many of you have seen systems remediated, you must have some idea about this.

Now, assume that country X is in just that situation. Or company X in your industry. Or agency X in your state/local/federal government. This should give you some basis for prediction. We want a model that says given some %remediation (which we can't know), what would be the consequences in terms of disruptions (which we can guess at based on successful remediation experience.) This is better than nothing.

Any takers?

-- Michael Goodfellow (mgoodfel@best.com), March 09, 1999

Answers

Michael,

Here's what Senator Bob Bennett said to the National Press Club on July 15, 1998:

http://home.swbell.net/adheath/bennett.htm

[snip]

I believe we're going to win; that is I think that civilization as we know it is not going to come to an end. It's a possibility. Possibility, if Y2K were this weekend instead of 76 weekends from now, it would.

[snip]

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), March 09, 1999.

How about systemic failure with none of the hands-on self-reliant hardware that generations of our ancestors developed? We have let it rust away or sent it to the dump! Since our work horse population has gone for pet food, what or who will pull the plow and haul the water and where is the clean source of water to be hauled? More takers please.

-- Watchful (seethesea@msn.com), March 09, 1999.

I don't exactly where we are headed, but destination would have been a few centuries earlier withour the remediations. Think Dark Ages.

Don't forget our culture still has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.

300 days

-- Greybear (greybear@home.com), March 09, 1999.

GB,

'Don't forget our culture still has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.'

It's this kind of comment I've come to expect from you and one of the reasons I love to read your posts...you can sure turn those phrases and make a point at the same time!

Shelia

-- Shelia (shelia@active-stream.com), March 09, 1999.

I think it's true that we would be where the computer is, in 1900, but without any of the 1900 skills.

Are you the fellow that posted the Senate report in HTML? If so, a very big thank you from many of us here! PDF has it's place, but not for something like this. <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), March 09, 1999.

I found this site through Gary North's webpage. It is an engine to figure the percentage of a chance for things going down, depending on what happens in different industries. Interesting to play with. http://www.y2knewswire.com/y2kengine.htm

-- linda (smitmom@hotmail.com), March 09, 1999.

Well, thanks for the comments people, but I was hoping for something along the lines of detailed information from people who have been involved in remediation projects. It occurred to me that this question might be a way to get past the lawyer-mandated wall of silence. After all, companies have no legal reason not to brag about their near misses. And that would be useful information for other companies, as well as those of us trying to produce a decent estimate of the effects of Y2K.

-- Michael Goodfellow (mgoodfel@best.com), March 09, 1999.