While many were ready to party "like it was 1999," many others predicted catastrophe at the end of the year from a small assumption made long ago when computers were first being programmed.

The Y2K (Year 2000) problem existed because most dates in computers were programmed to automatically assume the date began with "19" as in "1977" and "1988." But when the date was to turn from December 31, 1999 to January 1, 2000, it was prophesied that computers would be so confused that they would shut down completely.