Defusing the Year 2000 dilemma

How reliable will UW–Madison’s computing environment be when January 1, 2000, rolls around? If computer specialist Robert Irons achieves his goals, the university’s most crucial computing networks will be bug-free a full six months before this digital “doomsday.”

Irons is the Year 2000 Coordinator for UW–Madison’s Division of Information Technology (DoIT), and oversees a five-person staff that’s on a search-and-destroy mission for Y2K software problems. The glitch stems from the fact that many computers have only two-digit dates (for example, 84 rather than 1984), which means they can’t differentiate between the year 2000 and 1900. Computers that haven’t been fixed may begin producing incorrect results.

Irons’ first big project was to evaluate 1.6 million lines of code in the university’s accounting system, making it fully compliant for the year 2000. Upcoming projects will focus on other high-priority computer environments on campus, including the payroll office and the student registration system.

Irons believes much of the doomsday hysteria surrounding this problem, including predictions of economic collapse and food shortages, borders on silly. The good news is that problems are simple to find and easy to fix in software. Based on his own experience, the problem is less “dense” than experts first believed, meaning bugs are showing up in far fewer lines of computer code. On the other hand, problems in computer chips – which are embedded in everything from elevators to VCRs – need to be identified and corrected by the manufacturers.

Irons’ take-home message: Everything can be fixed if campus departments take the initiative and contact DoIT for help. But offices that snooze may greet the new millennium with a major technology hangover.

For more information about Y2K problems and solutions, Irons can be reached at (608) 263-6909 or by e-mail at bob.irons@doit.wisc.edu