Why were people concerned about Y2K back in 1999?

Question: Why were people concerned about Y2K back in 1999!?

If you think about it, we all thought the world would crash and every computer system would go down, etc!.

But then with the various time zones, weren't we able to see after the first time zone celebrated the new year that we were safe!?Www@QuestionHome@Com

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

Yes, it pretty much happened that way!. The worry was months if not years long, preceding the actual date of Dec 31, 1999!.

This kind of fear happened when 999 became the year 1000, too!. There was just a digital spin this time!

Fear of the "millennium" is just silly, since our entire calendar reckoning is flawed, anyhow -- if there was some significance to the 2000th year after Jesus of Nazareth's birth, it would have happened sometime in the years we call 1994-1996, since the starting point is about four to six years after his actual birth!.

Or perhaps cataclysms will occur at the 2000th anniversary of his death! That would keep us safe until about 2026 or so (if he was truly 33 at the time of death, and had been born in 4-to-6 BCE)!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

It had something to do with computers not being able to recognize the year 2000!. For some reason people thought the new year would be considered 1900 by computers!. I don't really get what the big deal was!.

I think humans just like to panic or something!. I mean, look at the big deal some people are making about the Mayan calendar & 2012!. It's supposed to be the end of the world, again!. I'll believe it when the Earth's poles shift!. ;pWww@QuestionHome@Com

It was a pretty silly thing to get all freaked out about!. After all, computer problems happen pretty frequently and what happens!? The system is down and then it gets fixed!.Www@QuestionHome@Com