History Main / MillenniumBug

* A Creator/CartoonNetwork short had the cast of ''WesternAnimation/TheGodzillaPowerHour'' encountering a personification of the bug. Captain Majors tries to use his signal device to summon Gozilla, but it's been rendered inoperable by the bug.

* An episode of ''Series/{{Millennium}}'' managed to combine [=Y2K=] and the Columbine incident. Somehow it worked.

* ''[[VideoGame/BlasterSeries Math Blaster Episode I: In Search of Spot]]'' actually has the [=Y2K=] bug in it. The printable certificate you receive at the end of your mission gives the date, which will be "1912" if you completed it in 2012. Considering the game was made in 1994, making the decade digit changeable was a total waste of effort.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "WesternAnimation/TreehouseOfHorror X" has doomsday on New Year's Day 2000, but the bug is actually caused by Homer's inability to ensure everything went smoothly. It's actually portrayed fairly realistically for a few seconds, with Springfield's clock being reset to 1900, but is followed by [[EverythingIsOnline almost everything with a computer chip]] (including traffic lights and even a carton of milk) becoming sentient and attacking humans, eventually leading the world's brightest minds to escape and colonize Mars (while all of the world's idiots are hurled into the Sun so the gene pool will be free of stupidity) as Earth descends into nuclear war.

Supposedly, on January 1, 2000, the world was going to be destroyed by a computer glitch known as the "Millennium Bug" ([[IHaveManyNames also referred to as "[=Y2K=]" or the "Year 2000 problem"]]). This bug involved numerous computer systems misinterpreting the year 2000 as 1900, resulting in planes falling out of the sky, satellites going wrong and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking all the]] [[Series/RedDwarf calculators going to silicon heaven]]; the most extreme fears involved an accidental nuclear war, or even machines coming to life and attacking humans like something out of ''Film/TheTerminator''. Most of the actual problems were just cosmetic, such as programs displaying the year after "1999" as [[http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/20.72.html "19100,"]] or desktop internal clocks resetting to 1981 as a crash-preventing exception.

For the sequel to the Bug itself, watch for the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem Year 2038 problem]] (when the [-UsefulNotes/{{UNIX}}-] system time integer exhausts its [[UsefulNotes/BinaryBitsAndBytes 32 bits]]). Fortunately, by that point, we'll certainly be using 64-bit time;[[note]]And we won't have to worry about THIS issue until the year [[TimeAbyss 292,277,026,596]].[[/note]] however, many embedded systems still use 32-bit time as of now. Due to increasingly rapid change of digital technology, especially on embedded systems, they tend to be replaced for low prices (or in the case of offline museum material, have the time rewinded). And if you're willing to wait ''much'' longer, refer to the Year 10000 problem, as clocks aren't used to handling five digit year numerals.

* In the ''Series/ColdCase'' episode "Resolutions", the VictimOfTheWeek and his friends discuss their fears over the [=Y2K=] bug before he is killed on New Year's Day 2000.

* This is an ongoing problem with GPS. To synchronize GPS receivers to the satellites' time, the satellites broadcast a timestamp every so often, as time is often used to track where a satellite is in space. However, GPS uses the number of weeks since January 6, 1980 as its date and this is stored as a 10-bit value. So the maximum number of weeks GPS can send out since its epoch is 1023. Roughly every 19.6 years, the week counter rolls over. For a number of technical reasons, the satellites can't be update to fix this. Instead, the GPS receiver software has to be updated to account for when the new epoch is. The last time this happened was April 6-7 in 2019 and is expected to occur again in November 20-21 2038.

* There was a joke about a response from conservative Republicans:
-->The Republican caucus had a meeting the other day and we've solved the problem of the [=Y2K=] bug. You see, when the computers can't recognize the year 2000, they flip back to 1900, and we like it better that way.

* An independent horror film called ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSKjyerM100 The Millennium Bug]]'' (Warning! ScreamerTrailer!) is set on the night before [=Y2K=] and centers on a family seeking shelter in the mountains from the hypothetical Millennium Bug. The good news is the computer one doesn't seem to be true. Bad news? They end up in a HillbillyHorror situation. [[FromBadToWorse Worse news?]] A literal (and gigantic) Millennium Bug awakens from underground to go on a carnage-filled rampage.

* An independent horror film called ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSKjyerM100 The Millennium Bug]]'' (Warning! ScreamerTrailer!) is set on the night before [=Y2K=] and centers on a family seeking shelter in the mountains from the hypothetical Millennium Bug. The good news is the computer one doesn't seem to be true. Bad news? A literal (and gigantic) Millennium Bug awakens from underground to go on a carnage-filled rampage.

What had happened was, computer memory and disk space was extremely expensive. By comparison, a gigabyte of RAM (roughly 1.4 million kilobytes) for your computer is maybe $15 today, and a two-terabyte (about 20,000 times 100 megabytes) hard drive (about the size of two packs of playing cards) might be $100 or less. But back in 1970, one kilobyte of RAM was about a thousand dollars, a 100-megabyte hard drive (about the size of a dishwasher) might have cost $12,000, and replacement disk packs (a foot high and the circumference of a dinner plate) were around $800 (for comparison, a brand-new VW Beetle was just under $2,000). So computer programmers needed to find ways to use less internal RAM and disk space in storing information on a computer. One way to save money was to store dates in short form; so all dates were typically stored internally in six digits (punctuation was added at display time), so November 27, 1960 was coded as 112760. Now, a month later, you can get by adding 1 to the second digit. The new date is later than the original one. However, if you have a date of November 15, 1992 (111592) and add eight years to it, you get 111500 or 111600, depending on how it's stored, which, if the program wasn't prepared for it, would not read it as 2000, but ''1900''. Either the difference between the two is a negative amount or instead of eight years' difference being computed, 92 years are computed. The issue here is that if you bought something and charged it to your credit card on the last week of 1999 and your bill came in a month later, you might get billed for 99 years of compound interest at 21%. It'd be like the EvilCounterpart of the CompoundInterestTimeTravelGambit.

So tonight, we're gonna party like it's nineteen ninety-nine"''

What had happened was, computer memory and disk space was extremely expensive. By comparison, today a gigabyte of RAM (roughly 1.4 million kilobytes) for your computer is maybe $15, and a two-terabyte (about 20,000 times 100 megabytes) hard drive (about the size of two packs of playing cards) might be $100 or less. But go back to 1970, and one kilobyte of RAM is about a thousand dollars, a 100-megabyte hard drive (about the size of a dishwasher) might cost $12,000, and replacement disk packs (a foot high and the circumference of a dinner plate) were around $800 (for comparison, a brand-new VW Beetle was just under $2,000). So they needed to find ways to use less internal RAM and less disk space in storing information on a computer. One way to save money was to store dates in a short form. So, typically all dates were stored internally as six digits (and punctuation was added at display time), so November 27, 1960 was coded as 112760. Now, a month later you can get by adding 1 to the second digit. The new date is later than the original one. Now, however, say you have a date of November 15, 1992 (111592), and you add eight years to it, you get 111500 or 111600, depending on how it's stored, which, if the program wasn't prepared for it, would consider it not 2000, but ''1900''. Either the difference between the two is a negative amount, or instead of eight years' difference being computed, 92 years are computed. The issue here is, if you bought something and charged it to your credit card on the last week of 1999, and your bill came in a month later, you might get billed for 99 years of compound interest at 21%! It'd be like the EvilCounterpart of the CompoundInterestTimeTravelGambit.

This was considered most serious in the case of process software. Say you're cooking chemicals in a plant that runs 24/7, where you have to heat a batch for exactly 37 hours at 1200 degrees, then move to the next process, when the calendar turns over, either the batch gets kicked out too soon, or it sits in too long and potentially explosions could occur, or perhaps a batch of something that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to make (and would have been sold for several million) is ruined. Or a system checks the date, realizes it's been running for 99 years with no maintenance, and shuts itself down for safety. If it happens to be the equipment that runs the electricity for your grid, you've got no power in the middle of winter (or summer in the Southern Hemisphere: which is just as bad, if not worse, since at least you can heat your house without power; air conditioning pretty much needs electricity, and in many places, no AC means heatstroke). There were also other potential scenarios, all bad. Of course, planes, satellites and calculators didn't do that, much to the joy of aviators, astronomers, and calculus students. But the bug was an opportunity for writers to come up with doomsday stories, and a few of them even wrote of actual insects ([[LamePunReaction groan-worthy though that may sound]]). Some newspapers even had a weekly column in their tech section throughout 1999, detailing how things were going in the battle against the bug.

Finally, January 1, 2000 arrived, and aside from a few glitches here and there, not much happened. Certainly nothing that could be called "apocalyptic." Thus, there is now a retrospective debate as to whether [=Y2K=] was blown out of proportion by [[WindmillCrusader people looking for an excuse to panic]], by the computer industry who were looking to sell people upgrades to their hardware and software with the promise of [=Y2K=] compatibility, or by people looking for an excuse to [[LuddWasRight damn the demon computer]], or if the disaster was indeed a possibility and was only averted by thousands of man-hours of programmers (mostly COBOL, which isn't really used for ''safety-critical'' software) working tirelessly to avoid a technological apocalypse. Although some dangers such as "planes falling out of the sky" were pretty much fabricated (the only real possibility for that is if said plane was taking off or landing and the computer crashed; if it were cruising in the air the pilots would have plenty of time to switch to manual control and fly it themselves if needed), the effects on the economy of a plausible worst-case scenario would still have been immeasurable. In addition, the [=Y2K=] preparations also had the effect of causing a lot of companies to rethink their emergency plans, helping them get back on their feet faster after events like 9/11 and the 2003 Northeast US blackout.

The fears over the bug did lead to many companies purchasing new hardware before they otherwise would have, leading to a tech boom followed by a bursting tech bubble in the early 2000s; and a lot of work in the late 90s went into reprogramming retrograde systems worldwide so that they no longer depended on two-digit years in their dates, meaning that there is an extent to which [=Y2K=] was as much quietly ''prevented'' by coders and developers as it was overhyped in mass media. Regardless of the aftermath, [=Y2K=] nonetheless provides an interesting look into the mindset of people who are faced with an oncoming problem of global proportions.

For the sequel to the Bug itself, watch for the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem Year 2038 problem]] (when the [-UsefulNotes/{{UNIX}}-] system time integer exhausts its [[UsefulNotes/BinaryBitsAndBytes 32 bits]]). Fortunately, by that point, we'll certainly be using 64-bit time;[[note]]And we won't have to worry about THIS issue until the year [[TimeAbyss 292,277,026,596]].[[/note]] however, many embedded systems still use 32-bit time as of now. However due to increasingly rapid change of digital technology, especially on embedded systems, they tend to be replaced for low prices (or in the case of offline museum material, have the time rewinded). And if you're willing to wait ''much'' longer, see the Year 10000 problem, as clocks aren't used to handling five digit year numerals.

* Kia motors took advantage of the hype by turning the acronym into their "Say '''Y'''es '''to''' '''K'''ia" event, in one commercial stressing how much more sense it made to invest in a new car instead of an underground bunker to survive [=Y2K=]. They were right.

* Raid, marketed itself as "the official killer of the Millennium Bug".
* A Nike ad had a jogger calmly going on his morning jog on January 1, 2001 as chaos reigns around him -- everything from escaped zoo animals to a rogue missile.
* In 1999, Nabisco held a commercial with an online poll, proposing a new flavor for Life Savers for the first time in the candy’s 65-year history, claiming they had been told that pineapple was "not [=Y2K=] compliant". Consumers were told to vote whether to change it to watermelon or strawberry, or keep pineapple, despite the warning. The winner was pineapple, overwhelmingly; clearly, folks who liked Life Savers the way it was weren't impressed by doomsayers.
* A commercial for Polaroid's [=PopShots=] instant camera shows a man running through Times Square seconds before midnight on December 31, 1999, looking for an ATM while passing a reporter announcing the [=Y2K=] bug still threatens bank disruptions and computer failure. He takes a picture of his balance of $342.63 just before the bug hits and cuts power to the machine. At the end of the commercial, the ATM comes back on and shows the balance has now become $46,674,942.63. After a second of shock, he takes another picture and walks away with a large grin.

* ''VisualNovel/SteinsGate'' has this happen in some of the timelines Okabe sees.

* The children's comic ''ComicBook/TheDandy'' took the concept of the 'Millennium Bug' and anthropomorphised it as a strange insect. The comic had numerous characters interact with it -- one story involved a robotic teacher being destroyed by a student handing in a photocopy of the bug as homework.
* ''ComicBook/{{Promethea}}'' has one of these, with the added bonus that the bug affects a very popular intelligent material called Elastagel, which is used in everything including clothing. It gives a whole new meaning to "fashion victim" when your own pants turn on you.
* Franchise/TheDCU had a massive in-universe effort to make all of their cyborg and robotic superheroes "[=Y2K=] Compliant". Unfortunately, they forgot [[Comicbook/DoomPatrol Robotman]], whose WWII-era robotic body went on a rampage just after New Year's.
* A crossover in ''Comicbook/{{Superman}}'' (collected in the "Endgame" trade) had Brainiac seizing the [=Y2K=] bug to try to take over the world.
* An infamous storyline in ''ComicBook/IronMan'' has one of the eponymous heroes' armors gaining sentience partly due to the [=Y2K=] bug, and going on a rampage of sorts. It was later {{RetCon}}ned into his armor being infected by Ultron.
* In the "Temporal Insanity" issue of ''ComicBook/{{PS238}}'', time traveling superhero Captain Chronos believed that if he went past December 31, 1999, his time machine would be destroyed because he downloaded a 1999 encyclopedia into his brain, and apparently, it didn't explain the [=Y2K=] bug very well. He did note that Tyler (from 2005 or so) did not look particularly post-apocalyptic.
* One ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' two-part story had him and [[ComicBook/DoctorFate Fate]] (Jared Stevens), teaming to fight the insane false prophet Malochia, who had been possessed by an EldritchAbomination that Fate called "the Spirit of 2000." According to Fate, this being [[EmotionEater fed off the fear mortals had]] of the numerous doomsday scenarios suggested by the coming of the new millennium, and if not stopped, would gain enough power to trigger a ''real'' apocalypse.

* ''Film/OfficeSpace'' mentions the [=Y2K=] bug as one of the reasons the company won't be looking close enough at their finances to notice the protagonists' plan taking place. Based on one of his conversations with Joana, [=Y2K=] preparedness was apparently a big part of Peter's job at Initech. The movie was filmed before all the hysteria set in, so [=Y2K=] is portrayed as a boring bit of minutiae, not a global catastrophe.
* There was a [[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0215370/ made-for-TV movie]] about it. The first hint of trouble comes when an airliner crosses the international date line on December 31, and promptly falls from the sky.

* An independent horror film called ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSKjyerM100 The Millennium Bug]]'' (Warning! ScreamerTrailer!) is set the night before [=Y2K=] and centers around a family seeking shelter in the mountains from the hypothetical Millennium Bug. Well, good news is the computer one doesn't seem to be true. Bad news? Turns out a literal (and gigantic) Millennium Bug awakens from underground to go on a carnage-filled rampage.
* ''Film/{{Entrapment}}'' is set on New Year's Eve in 1999. A sizeable part of the heist involves computers, so yes, this is mentioned.
* In the final scene of the Film/JamesBond film ''Film/TheWorldIsNotEnough'', the government looks in on Bond with an infrared scanner that reveals he's having sex. The newly appointed Q (Creator/JohnCleese) tactfully kills the feed and comments, "It must be a premature form of the millennium bug."
* ''Film/AWalkAmongTheTombstones'' is updated from the early Nineties in the novel, to 1999 in the film with the attendant [=Y2K=] apocalyptic hype, perhaps to show the WorldHalfEmpty of the AntiHero isn't so bad as he thinks.

* God calls [[UsefulNotes/MicrosoftWindows Bill Gates]], UsefulNotes/BorisYeltsin and UsefulNotes/BillClinton for an urgent message. He informs them the world will end next week and they are to relay a message to their people. Yeltsin goes back to Russia and says there is [[GoodNewsBadNews bad news and terrible news]] -- the bad news is there really is a God, and the terrible news is the world will end next week. Clinton holds a press conference in Washington and says there is good news and bad news -- the good news is there really is a God, and the bad news is the world will end next week. Bill Gates returns to Microsoft and holds an full employee conference, saying he has good news and great news. The good news is God knows what a wonderful, important person he is, and the great news is they don't have to worry about fixing the millennium bug!
* Programming staff at a large company is told that they need to implement the [=Y2K=] fix for the calendar in all their programs. So, they announce that with two weeks to go before January 1, 2000, all of the programs have had the change made, and now when any program prints out the first month of the year, it will print out "Januark", "Februark", etc. And by the way, is the company going to fix the problem of all the improperly formatted six digit dates in the programs it's running?

* Creator/CharlesStross, having been employed in various sectors of the IT industry before making it big as a writer, was another early pioneer of this trope with the short story "Ship of Fools" from 1994. He also correctly predicted that the problem would get blown totally out of proportion in the popular press and end up being an anticlimax.
* There was a ''Series/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'' tie-in novel where [[TheMagicGoesAway all magic in the universe was on the verge of disappearing]] because a giant clock in the Other Realm would stop working at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Day 2000. After hearing about how computer programmers were getting around the [=Y2K=] bug by writing new code, Sabrina decided to build a new clock by [[GottaCatchEmAll gathering several artifacts]] from [[InThePastEveryoneWillBeFamous famous people throughout history.]]
* This is thought to be the cause of worldwide loss of broadcast power and thereby communications in ''Literature/TheDireSaga''. [[spoiler:It's actually engineered by a group of artificial intelligences who were attempting to pin down a separate set of artificial intelligences to be killed.]]

* In 1998, author Jason Kelly published ''Y2K: It's Already Too Late," a novel positing that the impending catastrophe was real and there was nothing we could do to stop it. At one point, the American military invades and captures a heroic IT company that had managed to find a workaround for their own systems.

* One flashback episode of ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' ("11:59", which aired in 1999) has Janeway's ancestor quip that the bug didn't even turn off a light bulb.
* The ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'' episode "[=Y2K=]" has the characters reminiscing about their experience directly after the millennium, where they lived in the local supermarket believing themselves to be the only survivors of the millennium bug.
* Referenced in ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' during a flashback to 1999, as Jack talks about encountering one that had "18 legs stacked with poison!"
* One of the modern day episodes of ''Series/XenaWarriorPrincess'' reveals that the bug was yet another plot by Ares to get Xena back on his side. With the world in ruins, a hero like her would be needed again, so she'd want to be as strong as possible.
* ''Series/TheFamousJettJackson'''s ShowWithinAShow ''Silverstone'' had an episode revolving around the villains using this to their advantage.
* The ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' episode "Enemies: Domestic" featured a "flashback" to 1999[[note]]Of an event that would have taken place before the show actually debuted[[/note]] of Vance talking about getting the office computers ready for [=Y2K=].
* Referenced in ''[[Series/{{Alias}} Alias]]'' when Sydney and Vaughn go undercover as Russian spies preparing for a mission as [[DeepCoverAgent Deep Cover Agents]] in America. During a party, they make small-talk and reference the [=Y2K=] bug. [[YourCostumeNeedsWork They are subsequently scolded for being too stereotypical]].
* In the first episode of Fox's ''Series/OppositeSex'', there's an announcement at a school assembly that the school is now "[=Y2K=] Compliant." This would have been just a passing reference if the show had debuted in the fall of 1999 as planned; but since it was delayed until the summer of 2000, it became instantly HilariousInHindsight.

* ''Series/KamenRiderExAid'' manages to make [=Y2K=] a plot point in 2017, nearly two decades after the scare. When the subject is brought up, the protagonists comment that nothing really happened, only to be informed that it's actually the cause of the current threat: it affected a server at a video game company, somehow creating a virus (of both the computer ''and'' biological kind) that can [[TheGameComeToLife bring video games to life]]. The villains have spent the years since experimenting with this virus and its [[RealityWarper Reality Warping]] capabilities, including infecting a PatientZero to have it incubate for a decade.

-->'''Dr. Belljar:''' Bad news, Carmen: My processors think 1999 will be followed by the year 0!
* A Season Three episode of ''Series/{{Millennium}}'' managed to combine [=Y2K=] and the Columbine incident. Somehow, it worked.
* In ''Series/MadAboutYou'', an episode had Paul dreaming that Einstein gave him a mathematical formula, which he is eventually convinced that will solve the [=Y2K=] problem.
* Sid from ''Series/TheCoolKids'' mentions that he came out as gay to [[TheBeard his wife]] on New Years 1999. He freaked out over [=Y2K=] and blurted it out.
* Oscar from ''Series/CornerGas'' thinks the Millennium Bug could still happen, despite the show running from 2004 to 2009 and taking place during those years.
* In a [[WholeEpisodeFlashback [=#TBT=] episode]] of ''Series/LifeInPieces'' the Short family gathers around for a New Year's Eve party while John, like so many people, was under the impression that the [=Y2K=] bug was going to hit at 12:00 AM.
* On the ''Series/ColdCase'' episode "Resolutions", the VictimOfTheWeek and his friends discussed their fears over the [=Y2K=] bug before he was killed on New Year's Day 2000.

* Music/{{Prince}}'s megahit "1999," quoted above, capitalized on [=Y2K=] eighteen years before it happened. Apparently, he wanted the people to be ready with ''something'' to dance to as the world came to an end.

* The original lyrics to "Blank File" by Music/SonataArctica refer to the [=Y2K=] bug: "You're a slave among the slaves, waiting for [=Y2K=] with a fear". For the Ecliptica album remake, the word was changed to the more general "future".

* During TheNineties, a popular science magazine published an article about this issue, that started with a short joke history about a modern man {{time travel}}ling from the year 2000 to 1900 because of the [=Y2K=] bug.

* One ''Comicstrip/{{Dilbert}}'' strip from 1996 featured Dogbert offering to make the company's computers [=Y2K=] compliant. It was a scam: he outright told the PointyHairedBoss that the fix was only guaranteed for ''one'' year. [[TooDumbToFool The PHB still turned him down: "Why should I care? The year 00 is before I was born."]]

** Also came up when Dogbert posed as a doomsday prophet. He told people that 2000 would be the end of the world because '''It's big and round!'''

* ''ComicStrip/FoxTrot'', written by a tech-savvy author, had a lot of fun with this. One strip in particular has Jason and Peter discussing it, and Peter remarks "[[TemptingFate What's the worst that could happen]] [[MediumAwareness in a comic strip?]]"; in the last panel, everything's shifted to 1900 (Peter drinking from a milk bottle rather than a can of soda, Jason reading an article about the Wright Brothers).

* In the summer of 1999, Wrestling/{{WWE}} started airing vignettes featuring a "Countdown to the Millennium". On the August 9 episode of ''[[Wrestling/{{WWERaw}} WWF Raw is War]]'', during [[Wrestling/DwayneJohnson the Rock]]'s promo on ''[[Wrestling/BigShow The Big Show]]'', the Countdown appeared on the screen. When it ended, pyro went off and '''Wrestling/ChrisJericho''' debuted. In Jericho's [[http://www.cagematch.net/?id=93&nr=18 promo]], he called himself the "new millennium for the WWF", and ended by saying, "The new millennium has arrived in the WWF and now that the [=Y2J=] problem is here, this company, from the front office idiots to all the amateurs in the dressing room, including this one [pointing at The Rock], to everybody watching tonight will never, [=E-E-EVER=] be the same again!" "[=Y2J=] problem" was later simplified to "[[RedBaron Y2J]]".

* The ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'' supplement ''GURPS [=Y2K=]'' covers millennial disasters in general, not just the [=Y2K=] bug — but it was deliberately released as a cash-in, late in 1999, with that title.

** Diaboromon, [[spoiler:who was created by Millenniummon]], also fits.

--> '''Max:''' "After [=Y2K=], the end of the world had become a cliche."
* In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'', the bug was used as an excuse for the Patriots to implant a secret code into major computing systems all over the world.

* The [[ExcusePlot "plot"]] of ''Fighting Force'' actually plays with this: The MadScientist BigBad is pissed when the clock rolls over on New Year's and ''nothing happens'', so he decides to make something happen by instigating anarchy in the streets via freeing violent convicts from jail.
* Discussed on the radio in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoLibertyCityStories'', set in 1998.

* The plot of ''VisualNovel/FadingHearts'' makes reference to the [=Y2K=] bug having actually wreaked chaos and destruction around the world, to the point that the main character is one of many ''[=Y2K=] orphans''. Despite that, it seems to have had no effect on society or technology, serving more as a HandWave for why the characters don't have any parents.
* ''VideoGame/DanceDanceRevolution'' 3rdMIX gave us End of the Century, complete with line such as, "Some people think the Year 2G is so [scary], let's wait and see/The World will [shut] down, most won't admit".
** Yes, DDR 3rdMIX was released in 1999.
* ''VideoGame/Fallout76'' has an example that straddles the line between being a Video Game example and a Real Life example. When 2019 rolled around, the nuke silos locked up with a countdown timer of 9,999 hours (over a year) along with some other bugs related to the nuclear silos. The nuclear silos normally lock after use and then unlock after a set period of time. However, there was a problem within the programming of the game where it wasn't prepared for the new calendar year, causing the silos to be locked indefinitely. This problem has since been patched out of the game.
* The ending of the arcade version of ''VideoGame/FatalFury'' has the screen display the words that [[spoiler:[[BigBad Geese Howard]] dies on the date when the player beat the game, except that the first two digits are always 19, as showcase in the two playthrough videos of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuO1BhTUdvE&t=14m22s 2008]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFy06uvtaxI&t=14m34s 2013]]]].
* ''VideoGame/HypnospaceOutlaw'' takes place in a simulacra of late 1999's internet, so this eventually comes up as a plot point; a late chapter of the game takes place on New Year's Eve. [[spoiler:The date bug isn't a problem at all, but [[WhamEpisode other dire issues make themselves clear]] on New Years 2000 nonetheless.]]

* ''After [=Y2K=]''. Obviously. The world becomes a ''Film/MadMax'' wasteland after the [=Y2K=] bug destroys civilization, ultimately leading to the reinvention of all technology based on vacuum tubes instead of integrated circuits. The final plot arcs of the series involved the Techno-Talking Babes using TimeTravel to transmit an "inoculation" against the bug to the internet of 1999, and author Arthur C Clarke taking the world hostage with his "Real Millennium Bug" -- an attack which shut down all mechanical devices -- in order to force the world to acknowledge that the Millennium didn't really start until 200'''1''' (Which millennium is the "real" one has nothing to do with the [=Y2K=] bug: Clarke was just being pedantic.)

** When the year 2000 began, most of the main characters fell into comas. This turned out to be because [[spoiler:their nervous systems had been infected with otherwise harmless nanites that suffered from the [=Y2K=] bug]].

* In ''Webcomic/GeneralProtectionFault'', the entire team was forced to spend New Year's Eve at the office in case their servers had a problem due to [=Y2K=]. The arc was more about the party the programmers were forced to skip to show up and the fact that they got snowed in for a couple days afterwards than the [=Y2K=] bug itself - everything started up perfectly.
* One of the early central plots of ''Webcomic/KevinAndKell'' was that [=Y2K=] was a cover set up by the birds to disguise their intentions to reprogram the computers to run the world in their place.

* Briefly references in ''Webcomic/{{Avalon}}'' when the usual New Year's Eve party goes out. Like the Real Life Comics example above, it turned out to be just an electrical error rather than the bug.
* In ''Webcomic/TheSuburbanJungle'' Dover arranged for Tiffany to get hired as a [=Y2K=] debugger. When she pointed out that she had no idea how to fix it he explained that the [=Y2K=] Bug is just a scam to ensure job security for programmers.

* ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'': Since the comic takes place a thousand years in the future, the characters [[FutureImperfect are missing some key details]]. One person says that "secret government ad agencies killed the internet;" another says that no one knows what happened, since the internet was broken. There is an actual historian who could probably set them straight, but no one asked her.
* In ''Webcomic/AbsurdNotions'', Warren's boss decides to take no chances and tries to order all his employees to spend a month-long vigil around the millenium shift camped out in the office, so they can be ready to act if and when disaster strikes. Warren (being a competent sysadmin) insists that he's taken all precautions well ahead of time and that they're safe, but the boss won't budge. It's not until he threatens to resign that the boss relents.

* Website/{{RinkWorks}}’ ''Computer Stupidities'' has a [[http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_y2k.shtml Y2K section]]. Many of the anecdotes involve someone worrying that devices with no date-related systems will somehow go haywire on January 1, 2000. There are also two stories about actual [=Y2K=] bugs that occurred in "Success! No [=Y2K=] bugs!" bulletins.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "WesternAnimation/TreehouseOfHorror X" has doomsday on New Year's Day 2000, but the bug was actually caused by Homer's inability to ensure everything went smoothly. It was actually portrayed fairly realistically for a few seconds, with Springfield's clock being reset to 1900. This was followed by [[EverythingIsOnline almost everything with a computer chip]] (including traffic lights and a carton of milk) going wrong and attacking humans, eventually causing all of the world's brightest minds to evacuate Earth and colonize Mars (while all of the world's idiots are hurled into the Sun so the gene pool will be free of stupidity), as Earth descends into nuclear war.

** Of course, despite the doomsday preparations by some characters, the episode does portray [=Y2K=] fairly realistically. The only reason it's even an issue for Dilbert's company at all is because everything is dependent on the one computer that ''isn't'' [=Y2K=] compliant, an exceedingly old, COBOL-running mainframe that, in a move that even the Pointy-Haired Boss himself admits was stupid and short-sighted, didn't get replaced when it should have been. Fixing it was merely a matter of going in and making some minor alterations on certain lines of code.
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', Fry's father is shown to have a degree of paranoia regarding the "[=Y2K=]" (previously he'd been obsessed with DirtyCommunists).
** When the head of Creator/ConanOBrien starts telling a [=Y2K=] joke in the year 3000, Bender points out that it was fixed 900 years ago. [[DontExplainTheJoke Do the math yourself to figure out why it's funny.]]
* An old Creator/CartoonNetwork short had the cast of ''WesternAnimation/TheGodzillaPowerHour'' encountering a personification of the bug. Captain Majors tries to use his signal device to summon Gozilla, but it's been rendered inoperable by the bug.
* ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' dealt with this as well in the episode "Hillennium", in which usually-sensible Hank catches Dale's paranoia and begins working with Dale and a hardcore survivalist to prepare for the event, including buying a Grandfather Clock for Peggy for Christmas instead of an [=iMac=], because the Grandfather Clock would still be able to tell time afterwards. The {{Aesop}} of the episode is Hank learning not to fear the future.
* On Creator/TheWB in 1999, between episodes of ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'', [[PunnyName Kakko]], Wakko, and Dot fixed the [=Y2K=] bug for the whole network, ensuring that you could continue to watch them every [[{{Pun}} Mondak, Tuesdak, Wednesdak, Thursdak, Fridak, and Saturdak]].

* Despite the rampant fears, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2000_problem#Documented_errors there were very few incidents of computer failure]], most of which were found in library and movie rental databases, humorously leaving a few people with overdue fines in the tens of thousands of dollars. Not for lack of much blood, sweat and tears on the part of coders and sysadmins the world over as software patches were rolled out throughout the final quarter of 1999.
* Italian air traffic control did go a bit funny on the 1st of January 2000, causing cancellation of roughly 10% of flights and redirection of another 20%.
* One of the worst problems that actually happened occurred in one state's vehicle registration system. For technical reasons, registration documents for some new trucks had to be produced several months before the actual trucks were. The [=Y2K=] upgrades were not yet complete, and the system really thought the trucks were made in 1900 and produced documents with an unusual vehicle type designation used only for vehicles made before 1914. The fact that this was one of the worst things to actually happen shows how good the upgrades were.
* Despite the doomsayers, banks were never in any real danger. The only reason a bank wouldn't have fixed the issue in 1975, when programs to generate 25-year documents started producing garbage was because they had already fixed it when programs that generated 30-year documents started doing it in 1970. However, a number of post-office run [=ATMs=] in Japan ceased working [[https://www.wired.com/2000/03/leap-day-had-its-glitches/ two months into 2000]] from a related issue, creating a minor inconvenience for those needing to withdraw money until those machines were upgraded.
* While there were no problems, many systems that listed a date but didn't actually do any ''calculations'' with it just kept right on chugging. For instance, some building emergency fire systems kept on going with "1900, 1901, 1902" and so on for years after 2000, because what ''year'' it is doesn't really figure into setting off the fire alarm when there is smoke or fire, or an alarm pull being detected -- it did cause a few jokes about how the fire department might send a period-specific fire vehicle, like a horse-drawn pumper with a dalmatian.
* As it would later be with the MayanDoomsday in 2012, survival outfitters did booming business in the months leading up to it. There was a last minute run on essentials at grocery stores (people tend to freak out before snowstorms, too), but this was expected so most stores had planned for it.
* When midnight rolled around on December 31, 1999, the first technologically advanced nation it would hit (thanks to the location of the International Date Line) was UsefulNotes/NewZealand. There was a brief panic starting shortly after midnight NZ time, as people all over the world tried to ping New Zealand to make sure it was still online -- [[SelfFulfillingProphecy causing an overload that brought down New Zealand's internet briefly]]. It was back up by about ten past midnight, much to everyone's relief.
* The first generation Zune, Microsoft's competitor to the [=iPod=], was hit by a Y2K-esque bug when the date rolled over to December 31, 2008,[[note]]the 366th day of a leap year,[[/note]] causing the music player to instantly lock up and crash, and remain unusable till the device was hard restarted, the batteries drained, or the date rolled over to January 1, 2009.
** On that note, the early model UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 was hit by a similar leap year-related bug on March 1, 2010, the day which would have been February 29 had it been a leap year. Once again, the problem fixed itself the next day when a valid date was returned.
* For those tempted to think the whole thing was a panic over nothing, there were a few notable glitches while various agencies worked to fix the problem that hint at what could have gone wrong had the problem been ignored. One community in Texas, for instance, had a surprise when the utilities department set its clocks ahead for a test run in 1999. Somewhere along the line, a timer controlling the sewer system's automated flow controls hadn't yet gotten the memo about the new date format, and thus sat patiently counting down the 1999 years until it next needed to open the release valves while a public park experienced a minor flood of raw sewage.
* The US government still required that its agencies report on their [=Y2K=] preparedness as late as 2017! That is, 17 years after [=Y2K=] came and proved to be a bust, and five years after the MayanDoomsday itself came and also proved to be a bust.
* Many goverment-run hospitals in Western Australia used a system called T.I.M.S. (Telephone Information Management System) to - just as it says on the tin - manage their telephone systems. It allowed for monitoring, billing and directory services which were utilised by the Commmunications Centres and Switchboard operators. The systems was identified as being non-Y2K-compatible and was replaced. At least one hospital kept theirs running (in parallel with the replacement system) just to see what would happen, and on January 1, 2000, it failed, processing no call data and refusing to return information or display the directory. Since it is not humanly possible for a switchboard operator to memorise 3,000 telephone extension numbers and writing them all down on pieces of paper would have been impractical, it was a good thing for all concerned that the system was replaced.
* In an example that actually affected lives, in a Sheffield, UK hospital, a [=Y2K=] error caused an algorithm used in estimating Down's Syndrome risk for expectant mothers to malfunction (due to miscalculating the ages of the mothers), affecting 154 pregnant women before it was caught. As a result, two abortions were undertaken that otherwise wouldn't have been, and four babies with Down's Syndrome were born to mothers that had been told they were low-risk.
* There was a joke about a response from the conservative Republicans:
-->The Republican caucus had a meeting the other day and we’ve solved the problem of the [=Y2K=] bug. You see, when the computers can’t recognize the year 2000, they flip back to 1900, and we like it better that way.

* During TheNineties, a popular science magazine published an article about this issue, that started with a short joke history about a modern man being [[TimeTravel TimeTravelled]] from the year 2000 to 1900 because of the [=Y2K=] bug.

* Despite the rampant fears, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2000_problem#Documented_errors there were very few incidents of computer failure]], most of which were found in library and movie rental databases, humorously leaving a few people with overdue fines in the tens of thousands of dollars. Not for lack of much blood, sweat and tears on the part of coders and sysadmins the world over as software patches were rolled out throughout the final quarter of 1999. At least the overtime must have come in handy for the Christmas shopping-- [[FridgeLogic Hey, wait a minute...]] [[UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheories Son of a bitch!]]
* Italian air traffic control did go a bit funny on the 1st January 2000, causing cancellation of roughly 10% of flights and redirection of another 20%.

* Despite the doomsayers, banks were never in any real danger. The only reason a bank wouldn't have fixed the issue in 1975, when programs to generate 25-year documents started producing garbage was because they had already fixed it when programs that generated 30-year documents started doing it in 1970. However, the other Wiki says that a number of post-office run [=ATMs=] in Japan ceased working upon rolling into the year 2000, creating a minor inconvenience for those needing to withdraw money until those machines were upgraded.

* When midnight rolled around on December 31, 1999, the first technologically advanced nation it would hit (thanks to the location of the International Date Line) was [[UsefulNotes/NewZealand New Zealand]]. There was a brief panic starting shortly after midnight, New Zealand time, as people all over the world tried to ping New Zealand to make sure it was still online -- [[SelfFulfillingProphecy causing an overload that brought down New Zealand's internet briefly]]. It was back up by about ten past midnight, much to everyone's relief.
* The first generation Zune, Microsoft's competitor to the [=iPod=], was hit by a Y2K-esque bug when the date rolled over to December 31, 2008,[[note]]the 366th day of a leap year,[[/note]] causing the music player to instantly lock up and crash, and remain unusable till the device was hard restarted, the batteries drained, or the date rolled over again.
** On that note, the early model UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 was hit by a similar leap year-related bug in 2010.

* Music/{{Prince}}'s megahit "1999," quoted above, capitalized on [=Y2K=] thirteen years before it happened. Apparently, he wanted the people to be ready with ''something'' to dance to as the world came to an end.

* In ''Webcomic/GeneralProtectionFault'', the entire team was forced to spend New Year's Eve at the office in case their servers had a problem due to [=Y2K=] The arc was more about the party the programmers were forced to skip to show up and the fact that they got snowed in for a couple days afterwards than the [=Y2K=] bug itself - everything started up perfectly.

The fears over the bug did lead to many companies purchasing new hardware before they otherwise would have, leading to a tech boom followed by a bursting tech bubble in the early 2000s; and a lot of work in the late 90s went into reprogramming retrograde systems worldwide so that they no longer depended on two-digit years in their dates, meaning that there is an extent two which [=Y2K=] was as much quietly ''prevented'' by coders and developers as it was overhyped in mass media. Regardless of the aftermath, [=Y2K=] nonetheless provides an interesting look into the mindset of people who are faced with an oncoming problem of global proportions.

Finally, January 1, 2000 arrived, and aside from a few glitches here and there, not much happened. Certainly nothing that could be called "apocalyptic." Thus, there is now a retrospective debate as to whether [=Y2K=] was blown out of proportion by [[WindmillCrusader people looking for an excuse to panic]], by the computer industry who were looking to sell people upgrades to their hardware and software with the promise of [=Y2K=] compatibility, or by people looking for an excuse to [[LuddWasRight damn the demon computer]], or if the disaster was indeed a possibility and was only averted by thousands of man-hours of programmers (mostly COBOL, which isn't really used for ''safety-critical'' software) working tirelessly to avoid a technological apocalypse. Although some dangers such as "planes falling out of the sky" were pretty much fabricated (the only real possibility for that is if said plane was taking off or landing and the computer crashed; if it were cruising in the air the pilots would have plenty of time to switch to manual control and fly it themselves if needed), the effects on the economy of a plausible worst-case scenario would still have been immeasurable. In addition, the [=Y2K=] preparations also had the effect of causing a lot of companies to rethink their emergency plans, helping them get back on their feet faster after events like 9/11 and the 2003 Northeast US blackout. The fears over the bug did lead to many companies purchasing new hardware before they otherwise would have, leading to a tech boom followed by a bursting tech bubble in the early 2000s. Regardless of the aftermath, [=Y2K=] nonetheless provides an interesting look into the mindset of people who are faced with an oncoming problem of global proportions.

Funnily enough, just when people started to relax when the transition from 1999 to 2000 came to pass and nothing really major happened to computers across the globe, something actually ''did'' come along and wreak havoc on computers worldwide: the ILOVEYOU virus, or the "Love Bug", as it came to be misremembered.

For the sequel to the Bug itself, watch for the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem Year 2038 problem]] (when the [-UsefulNotes/{{UNIX}}-] system time integer exhausts its [[UsefulNotes/BinaryBitsAndBytes 32 bits]]). Fortunately, by that point, we'll certainly be using 64-bit time;[[note]]And we won't have to worry about THIS issue until the year [[TimeAbyss 292,277,026,596]].[[/note]] however, many embedded systems still use 32-bit time as of now. However due to increasingly rapid change of digital technology, especially on embedded systems, they tend to be replaced for low prices (or in the case of offline museum material, have the time rewinded). And if you're willing to wait ''much'' longer, see the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_10,000_problem Year 10000 problem]], as clocks aren't used to handling five digit year numerals.

* The July 7, 2020 outage of TV Tropes occurred thanks to a similar issue. A firmware flaw in SanDisk LT0400MO drives resulted in servers shutting down after exactly 40,000 hours of use. This caused 6 of the 8 servers TV Tropes used at the time to fail.

Finally, January 1, 2000 arrived, and aside from a few glitches here and there, not much happened. Certainly nothing that could be called "apocalyptic." Thus, there is now a retrospective debate as to whether [=Y2K=] was blown out of proportion by [[WindmillCrusader people looking for an excuse to panic]], by the computer industry who were looking to sell people upgrades to their hardware and software with the promise of Y2K compatibility, or by people looking for an excuse to [[LuddWasRight damn the demon computer]], or if the disaster was indeed a possibility and was only averted by thousands of man-hours of programmers (mostly COBOL, which isn't really used for ''safety-critical'' software) working tirelessly to avoid a technological apocalypse. Although some dangers such as "planes falling out of the sky" were pretty much fabricated (the only real possibility for that is if said plane was taking off or landing and the computer crashed; if it were cruising in the air the pilots would have plenty of time to switch to manual control and fly it themselves if needed), the effects on the economy of a plausible worst-case scenario would still have been immeasurable. In addition, the [=Y2K=] preparations also had the effect of causing a lot of companies to rethink their emergency plans, helping them get back on their feet faster after events like 9/11 and the 2003 Northeast US blackout. The fears over the bug did lead to many companies purchasing new hardware before they otherwise would have, leading to a tech boom followed by a bursting tech bubble in the early 2000s. Regardless of the aftermath, [=Y2K=] nonetheless provides an interesting look into the mindset of people who are faced with an oncoming problem of global proportions.

* In 1999, Nabisco held a commercial with an online poll, proposing a new flavor for Life Savers for the first time in the candy’s 65-year history, claiming they had been told that pineapple was "not Y2K compliant". Consumers were told to vote whether to change it to watermelon or strawberry, or keep pineapple, despite the warning. The winner was pineapple, overwhelmingly; clearly, folks who liked Life Savers the way it was weren't impressed by doomsayers.
* A commercial for Polaroid's [=PopShots=] instant camera shows a man running through Times Square seconds before midnight on December 31, 1999, looking for an ATM while passing a reporter announcing the Y2K bug still threatens bank disruptions and computer failure. He takes a picture of his balance of $342.63 just before the bug hits and cuts power to the machine. At the end of the commercial, the ATM comes back on and shows the balance has now become $46,674,942.63. After a second of shock, he takes another picture and walks away with a large grin.

* ''Film/OfficeSpace'' mentions the [=Y2K=] bug as one of the reasons the company won't be looking close enough at their finances to notice the protagonists' plan taking place. Based on one of his conversations with Joana, Y2K preparedness was apparently a big part of Peter's job at Initech. The movie was filmed before all the hysteria set in, so Y2K is portrayed as a boring bit of minutiae, not a global catastrophe.

* ''Film/AWalkAmongTheTombstones'' is updated from the early Nineties in the novel, to 1999 in the film with the attendant Y2K apocalyptic hype, perhaps to show the WorldHalfEmpty of the AntiHero isn't so bad as he thinks.

* For those interested, as of 2017, one can still buy Y2K survival guides from [[http://www.regnery.com/books/the-y2k-personal-survival-guide/ Regnery Publishing.]]

* In ''Literature/{{Sisterland}}'', Kate is worried about this, but Vi tells her, "That Y2K stuff is bullshit. My meditation group was talking about it, and we've all gotten messages that the transition will be peaceful."

* Referenced in ''[[Series/{{Alias}} Alias]]'' when Sydney and Vaughn go undercover as Russian spies preparing for a mission as [[DeepCoverAgent Deep Cover Agents]] in America. During a party, they make small-talk and reference the Y2K bug. [[YourCostumeNeedsWork They are subsequently scolded for being too stereotypical]].

* A Season Three episode of ''Series/{{Millennium}}'' managed to combine Y2K and the Columbine incident. Somehow, it worked.
* In ''Series/MadAboutYou'', an episode had Paul dreaming that Einstein gave him a mathematical formula, which he is eventually convinced that will solve the Y2K problem.
* Sid from ''Series/TheCoolKids'' mentions that he came out as gay to [[TheBeard his wife]] on New Years 1999. He freaked out over Y2K and blurted it out.

* In a [[WholeEpisodeFlashback [=#TBT=] episode]] of ''Series/LifeInPieces'' the Short family gathers around for a New Year's Eve party while John, like so many people, was under the impression that the Y2K bug was going to hit at 12:00 AM.
* On the ''Series/ColdCase'' episode "Resolutions", the VictimOfTheWeek and his friends discussed their fears over the Y2K bug before he was killed on New Year's Day 2000.

** It's subtly implied that his creator created them ''specifically to make the Y2K bug real'', along with calling them "Cool Ragnarok".

** When the year 2000 began, most of the main characters fell into comas. This turned out to be because [[spoiler:their nervous systems had been infected with otherwise harmless nanites that suffered from the Y2K bug]].

* The US government still required that its agencies report on their Y2K preparedness as late as 2017! That is, 17 years after [=Y2K=] came and proved to be a bust, and five years after the MayanDoomsday itself came and also proved to be a bust.

* In an example that actually affected lives, in a Sheffield, UK hospital, a Y2K error caused an algorithm used in estimating Down's Syndrome risk for expectant mothers to malfunction (due to miscalculating the ages of the mothers), affecting 154 pregnant women before it was caught. As a result, two abortions were undertaken that otherwise wouldn't have been, and four babies with Down's Syndrome were born to mothers that had been told they were low-risk.

-->The Republican caucus had a meeting the other day and we’ve solved the problem of the Y2K bug. You see, when the computers can’t recognize the year 2000, they flip back to 1900, and we like it better that way.