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Y2K
The problem is simple - as the clock strikes twelve, computers and microchips still operating on a two-digit year, will click back to 1900, a year in which thinking machines were barely a dream, much less an invention. On January 1st next year, we may wish things had stayed that way! Every day, the average urban South African interacts with at least twenty microchips. From microwaves and PCs to electricity and water, we are vulnerable to the extent that we depend upon computer technology. But the first step towards solving a problem is to admit you have one.
So ... is South Africa ready for Y2K? On the face of it the solution is easy - simply upgrade your PC or mainframe to cope with the expanded date.
Luckily, necessity is the mother of invention. There's a handful of products that will tell you if your computer is Y2K resistant. There's even a proverbial silver bullet, called the Intellifix2000 - a software package that claims to find and fix Y2K problems in hardware and software. Andre Du Toit from Techno 2000 explains: " We've found that most people address only the hardware problem. To address the software problem, one needs to go onto the Internet and download patches, upgrades or replace the software which becomes very, very costly. So we did a lot of research and eventually found a package that will address all issues - from hardware through operating systems, applications and the data that we have created, and actually fixes those problems."
Consequently, the government has created the Y2K centre, to oversee the national Y2K effort. The banking and financial sectors claim to be online. The main concern at the moment is essential services, like electricity and water, transport, and healthcare. "The Critical Centres, if they stop, then the country will actually stop," explains Peter Ewart-Brookes from Y2K Centre. "There will be no electricity, no delivery of food and no delivery of fuel. But contingency planning goes a lot broader than that, taking in every government organisation and every para-statal and hopefully every private sector organisation". But what happens if there's a glitch? Given the interdependence of our national infrastructure, a small problem in one sector could result into a crisis in another. For instance, what if a water station loses electricity and can't pump water? Residents in the local area might not be too bothered, especially if it's only for a couple of hours ... but what about hospitals? "The first struggle is to fix that equipment that needs fixing, explains Dr. Tim Wilson from the Dept. of Health, " particularly the high priority equipment and the Life Saving equipment, and we believe that can be fixed. But we do have a parallel process of contingency planning to make sure that if anything should go wrong, that we will be in a position to deal with it." Y2K planning starts with electricity. Of all the utilities, this is the lifeblood of the modern economy. If it dries up, then so does every machine that depends on it. Eskom claim they're prepared, but questions have been asked about local authorities, the people responsible for distributing electricity at a municipal level. Just how compliant are they? John Erich from the Pretoria Municipality explains, "Municipalities and particular interested Departments have done their homework. They have identified all the issues that could cause problems and are in the process of addressing them, or have already addressed them".
But even if the lights stay on, some problems are simply out of our hands. Given the increasing globalization of the world economy, South Africa could end up catching the Y2K flu from our friends and neighbours.
Peter Ewart-Brookes continues: "The plans are in place at the lowest level where the work actually happens, but they are consolidated, controlled, monitored and structured which actually brings it all back up into a central control centre, and that's how it will be monitored from the turn of the century onwards". One Newsweek article warned that "A bigger threat than apocalyptic meltdown is death by a thousand cuts." Contingency planning is an essential part of any Y2K strategy. But take solace in the fact that if there are problems, we'll hear about them. Telkom and the cell-phone providers have tested their networks against a simulated Y2K countdown ... and they worked. Pieter Germishuys from the Telkom Y2K explains: "People think that the Year 2000 will be the end of the world, and that is not true. A lot of big corporations have done immense amount of testing - making sure that the Year 2000 will not have a detrimental effect. In the past we have done some international testing and Telex testing with Hong Kong Telecom. We have also tested with MTN and Vodacom, our Cellular Operators, which was very successful". South Africa may be at less risk, but many of the creature comforts we take for granted depend upon the same tenuous infrastructure as the rest of the developed world. Our most marvellous creation - the computer - threatens to be our undoing. Andre Du Toit continues,"If you are using an older machine, the data you've created with those applications, wouldn't be compliant. You would have to address those issues. It is like wanting to refurbish your car and spraying it a beautiful new colour, but you don't replace the engine. You still will not have a brand new car". By most accounts however, South Africa has the measure of the Y2K bug. Bar a few hiccups, the sun will rise and the world will keep spinning ... leaving us to breath a sigh of relief and reflect that Y2K was nothing more than a collective wake-up call.
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Do not ask for whom the bell tolls - it tolls for thee! The Millennium is upon us and even Nostradamus could not have predicted the technological apocalypse presented by Y2K.
But this is no easy task when you consider the huge number of computers in industry and private homes. If they all go wrong, the only safe bet on New Year's day is that the sun will rise.
Various software packages may fix your average PC or mainframe, but it's not a total solution. The problem is that a great deal of hardware contains embedded chips - independent microchips hardwired into the circuit boards. Not just microwaves and VCRs, but power plants and pump stations!
