LGR Tech Tales - Y2K

evistre

love it!

Because Why-Nerd

I loooved the cameos of the many YouTube voices rowards the end. Made me smile. Also i remember this well, in 1997 i worked at a computer store, and had customers comming in to buy a modem asking if it was Y2K safe...

Steve Lovelace

I know you wanted to have it done for New Years, but it's cool that, with the delay, you were able to cover the Y2020 bug. Now if you'll excuse me, I got to prepare for Y2038.

Deckard Games

I clearly remember having some old pcs at our students association that went to back to 1900. Fun times! The amount of research on this video is just staggering. I can only and honestly say congratulations.

Awesome video Clint, I remember changing the bios clock on my old 386 to see what would happen, and being so underwhelmed when all it did was reset to the year 1900, no explosions, no fireworks, it didnt transform into compaq-timus prime or anything....to 15 year old me....it was very anti climactic🤣🤣

LGR

Thanks! The Korg Minilogue XD has really rekindled my desire to make music again, I've never had an analogue synth before.

AlexPeaks

Sweet tunes. I love how you told the story from a balanced point of view. And you had special guests. I wouldn't mind seeing more collaboration in the future :)

Myles MAN

I just bought a count down to 2000 disposable camera new in box from a thrift store, I hope it’s Y2K compliant. The packaging is covered in late 90’s cheese and I love it! Also I enjoyed guessing your guests in the video!

The 8-Bit Guy

I was wondering when this would be finished! I like the music, by the way!

LGR

Perhaps you'll get your chance with the Unix 2038 bug, haha

LGR

Quite welcome, it's long overdue!

LGR

A whole cabin? That's pretty incredible in hindsight. But hey, free lanterns!

LGR

Ha, that's an awesome idea. I'm always far too tempted to grab another synth while I'm in there, it's a den of sin I tell you. Glorious polyphonic SIN.

LGR

Thank you, John! Definitely attempted to up my game on this one. Hope you have fun with the 2038 problem in eighteen years 😁

Max Larivee

Finally, a new Tech Tales! Thank you!!

moosemaimer

I had a neighbor who was so wrapped up in the panic he bought a cabin in the woods and stocked it with supplies, then had to get rid of most of it when nothing happened. Still have some lanterns and propane canisters from when we helped empty the place.

Jeremy Abel

Ooooh cool to see you making your own music!! Personally, whenever I'm in town, I've def been known to take a little recorder down to the Moog factory to record some stuff using the machines they have for demo, which is kinda sneaky but effective :P

John Piscopo

My family still refers to canned foods in the pantry when we're broke, "Well, There's still that Y2K stuff you can eat" ...Clint, your videos are so awesome man. The pacing, the quality, and the subject matter is just the best. ...I was was living up in Humboldt during the Y2K, I had to work the night shift at Safeway Grocery store, on New Year's Eve. We were in chrage of the Unix system that managed the price changes. We had to monitor the system that night, I just remember logging in and seeing Netscape as the browser at the time. Nothing happened. This was a few years before I became an IT guy...but there was so much "End Times" panic...hilarious...~Cheers

LGR

Thanks! I imagine a whole bunch of those little stories, anecdotes, and articles that I included here haven't been seen since they were printed. Some of that stuff proved hard to source.

LGR

Oh jeez, Oracle of all corporations should know better.

LGR

I've been slapping the ones I bought for this video on all sorts of random stuff around my house, haha. You can get some on Redbubble, search "Y2K Compliant!"

LGR

Thanks! Me too! Always nice to get some quality folks in on the fun :)

LGR

You bet, thank you for watching!

LGR

Haha, yeah I'd be quite curious to see one myself. Can only imagine what silly marketing blurbs are on the packaging, describing EXACTLY how this mechanical device is more Y2K-compatible than others...

LGR

Props on the (slight) improvement :D

LGR

I was 14 and my circle of friends held similar views, haha. "Wouldn't it be awesome if all the street lights blew up?! Let's go outside and watch!"

LGR

No kidding, argh! 1990 was 30 years and I cannot. I just cannot.

LGR

Haha, yeah I suppose that's a win overall. Thanks :)

LGR

Nice, I hope you enjoyed this one just as much! One of my friend's parents worked at a grocery store back then and they had to stay until midnight as well to ensure the same thing, didn't want food going bad or looters or anything. Such silly times.

LGR

Thanks again for the assist! And wow, I can't believe you'd risk your life like that 😄

LGR

Thank you kindly! And I'm glad the relation between original Y2K commenter location and YouTubers didn't go unnoticed. I specifically chose certain folks for certain comments based on their accent :)

LGR

Heh, for real. It appears that Y2038 is already pretty much fixed or being fixed, but I'm sure that won't stop folks from writing up sensationalist silliness.

LGR

There are a bunch of them on eBay at any given time, go for it!

LGR

I'll be quite curious to see that myself!

LGR

Haha, "Y2-OK." Y20K sounds like a Warhammer property.

LGR

Glad to provide some new info! That was certainly a goal since it's been covered to death by others :)

LGR

I'd love to see a truly Y2K-incompatible toaster out of morbid curiosity though, haha. Like, I imagine it just keeps burning your bread for a hundred years.

LGR

Indeed, I could do a whole video on the aftershocks of Y2K! Had to cut a good four pages of that kinda thing :)

LGR

Aw yeah, buncha legends.

LGR

I can only imagine how irritating some of the commentary must've been in your case! On a related note, while doing research for this I actually ran across some 90s Y2K deniers saying that Y2K was "just as overblown as climate change" and the public panic was just as unjustified. Absurd stuff in hindsight.

JennaKay

My family ran an IT company, and had to fix some of the software to deal with this. And yep, no freak outs at home, we knew the scope. Never underestimate how long a business will keep some custom piece of code running! Great little video, it'd be easy for this oddity of history to be forgotten.

As a programmer, I found a weird problem in my project's source code, where date/time values since the start of 1970 were stored in 32-bit floating point variables, causing a loss of precision and seconds, starting in 2001. We fixed that as part of our Y2K fixes. But even today, Oracle Corp is naming its software patches using the YYMMDD format. Just a few days ago, they released the 200114 patch. Sigh.

Zachary Outen

Wish I had been old enough to truly appreciate the hilarity of people freaking out about this. My parents apparently didn't believe any of it because I don't remember anything about it at the time, then again they might have cared and just didn't want to freak me out lol

Jason Olshefsky

Having been part of the whole fix team (with a Y2K polo shirt to prove it!) I was especially annoyed by the 2000s hoax-endorsers. As such, not doing a thing about climate change—obviously humanity is too stupid to live. I did an amusing test of E-Z Pass back some years ago trying to get a false speeding ticket for driving too fast between toll plazas (a myth, BTW) by doing so during the daylight savings time switchover. https://jayceland.com/blog/archive/2008/11/03/e-z-pass-hyjinks/

Peter Metzger

I want to get a "Year 2000 Y2K Compliant" sticker for my 1999 Volvo now ^_^

Mike Roach

I love crossovers. And the video itself is great!

Seth C

Fantastic video. Oh the days of the Y2K remediation contracts. Good times. Thanks for another awesome tech tales!

Malbeth

I kind of want a Y2K Gun ;)

Marnix

All I remember from the whole y2k thing is that my computer should have exploded according to some sources and around december 31 my mind was in a particularly bad state as it sometimes does with angsty 19 year olds. Basically I was ready for the world to go down, which of course didn't happen. Twenty years later, still alive and somewhat improved ;)

Grunk

I was 13 around Y2K and remembering my teachers just shaking their heads at american media at the time... Us kids just thought it would be cool if everything went "KABOOM!" at New Years eve.... Great video btw!

Pablo Rodriguez

Two decades? Bullcrap. Two decades ago it was the 80's! That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Bryndal Dwyre

I actually checked my bank account at an atm just after midnight into 2000 but alas, my bank hadn't mistakenly given me a large sum of money. Thankfully it hadn't taken any of the money I had in it either so that was good. Great video. :)

Frederic St-Georges

I'm so happy Tech Tales is back! I've watched the previous episodes so many times and still find them enjoyable and informative. When Y2K arrived, I was still in college and working part-time in a grocery store. People were so freaked out about the bug that the whole managerial team stayed at work on NYE in case the electrical system would fail. It didn't...

Kris Asick

Happy to help lend my voice for a quick little snippet! As a fun fact: My Win98 computer was on the entire time across the room while I watched the South Park Y2K live countdown on TV. Afterwards, I went back to my computer and everything was hunky-dory. :B

Rutger van Bergen

Again an excellent Tech Tales episode, with from the perspective of the topic an unusually balanced discussion of the topic. Also love the voices of fellow YouTubers reading out the post-Y2K comments (I didn't read the post text so it was a genuine surprise as I watched), and the attention-to-detail effort put into matching locations/accents of voices with the supposed location of comment writers. I've said before Tech Tales are one of my favorite LGR series, and I wholeheartedly stand by that!

PiraTed

Y2K. Isn't it great knowing that we live in a society relying less on tech nowadays & the news media doesn't rely on misleading headlines for ratings anymore? I'm sure nothing like that will ever happen again. *Y2038 laughs from the future

I am looking forward to the year 10000 problem.

PhotoSvein

Now I want that y2k bug plush 😀

Rush Robbins

Can't wait for 2038's LGR video 😂

Dizzy

Did one of those things say "Y20K"? Man, they were preparing *well* in advance.

Gary Leigh

Great video. Some info I wasn't aware of. Y2K was one of those things that really irritated me at the time.

Robert Butler

Nice! I remember being like, "No, your toaster isn't suddenly going to spring to life and eat your hand... 😒"

Curus Keel

Y2K, you let me down...

Larry Anderson

Awesome video, brought back tons of memories (yes, I'm old and I was there). Worth mentioning that all the spending leading up to Y2K was a big contributor to the dot com bust starting in 2001/2002.

best crossover ever.