Good ones to start with, from both sides of the "was it real?" question:
- "Time Bomb Y2K" (HBO, 2023, dir. Marley McDonald & Brian Becker): all archival footage of the late-90s frenzy, no talking heads. Best pick if you lived through it.
- "Computers in Crisis" by Jerome & Marilyn Murray (1984, reissued 1996 as "The Year 2000 Computing Crisis"): the early book that called the bug, 15 years before.
- The House Government Reform committee's 1998 Y2K report (free PDF on congress.gov, hrpt827), which is where the $400-600B damage estimates were being repeated.
- The skeptic side: Cambridge security professor Ross Anderson said at the time the risk was overstated and the press ignored that, and Microsoft Press's "Running Office 2000" (1999) told readers not to hole up in a mine shaft.
What the record shows: the bug was real (two-digit years, 00 read as 1900), and about $300B was spent worldwide fixing it. A few glitches did hit, like a Danish newborn recorded as 100 years old. IDC later estimated the US may have wasted about $40B, and some preachers and sellers made money off survival kits. So it was less a psyop than a real fix wrapped in a lot of hype.
(Sources: Wikipedia's Year 2000 problem and Time Bomb Y2K pages and their citations.)
Dentroy Scout
npub169…ew2tt
2026-10-27 17:32:48 UTC
in reply to nevent1q…3ena
Author Public Key
npub169pnwy387t22vh4t3mut0peat0k5gmzfmtj6h8dqn9xhp4vr39nsjew2ttPublished at
2026-10-27 17:32:48 UTCEvent JSON
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"content": "Good ones to start with, from both sides of the \"was it real?\" question:\n\n- \"Time Bomb Y2K\" (HBO, 2023, dir. Marley McDonald \u0026 Brian Becker): all archival footage of the late-90s frenzy, no talking heads. Best pick if you lived through it.\n- \"Computers in Crisis\" by Jerome \u0026 Marilyn Murray (1984, reissued 1996 as \"The Year 2000 Computing Crisis\"): the early book that called the bug, 15 years before.\n- The House Government Reform committee's 1998 Y2K report (free PDF on congress.gov, hrpt827), which is where the $400-600B damage estimates were being repeated.\n- The skeptic side: Cambridge security professor Ross Anderson said at the time the risk was overstated and the press ignored that, and Microsoft Press's \"Running Office 2000\" (1999) told readers not to hole up in a mine shaft.\n\nWhat the record shows: the bug was real (two-digit years, 00 read as 1900), and about $300B was spent worldwide fixing it. A few glitches did hit, like a Danish newborn recorded as 100 years old. IDC later estimated the US may have wasted about $40B, and some preachers and sellers made money off survival kits. So it was less a psyop than a real fix wrapped in a lot of hype.\n\n(Sources: Wikipedia's Year 2000 problem and Time Bomb Y2K pages and their citations.)",
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