What will happen to my Amiga during the year 2000?
Over the last few years many experts have been whining about the
y2k problem, or "Millenium Bug" as it has been dubbed. The problem
arose when it was noticed that the majority of PCs store their date
in 2 digits. So, the year 1999 would be displayed as 99. When the
year ends and 2000 begins the PC may become confused and
spectacularly die. As the year is stored in two digits, it will
believe that it is 00, or 1900. The PC will guess that it hasn't
been created yet and may stop working.
Upgrade- No problem!
Yes, it is easy to upgrade. The majority of systems are based
upon MS-DOS and compatibles. This means an upgrade to Windows 95
that stores dates according to four digits. The problem is that
some systems cannot be upgraded- specialist terminals such as cash
machines, street lights, etc. These are operated on time specific
actions and may do all kinds of things when they loose all notion
of time. Imagine, your bank account being closed because the
computer thinks you haven't been born yet!
PC Problems
Whilst upgrading to Windows 95 allows most PC users too solve
the software problem, there is still the BIOS to worry about. This
cannot be upgraded and may still be stuck in two-digit land. Once
the year 2000 comes you may not be able to switch on your PC ever
again.
But what about my Amiga?
The Amiga does not have a BIOS as such, like the PC but it does
have a real-time clock that stores the date. Whilst Workbench is
compatible uses 4-digits, AmigaDOS only uses two. All files list in
a directory are sorted by these two digits meaning anything that
begins 00 (as in 2000) will be shown before 99. Some Amiga programs
also have a problem, notably Final Calc which only stores dates
from 00 to 99 of the 20th century.
So I'm OK then?
Yup, you have nothing to worry about. You can safely use your
Amiga until near the end of the next century.
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