And there was the factory that rolled their clocks forward and watched all lines shut down. When Y2K happened to a town in Siberia that hadn’t mitigated, there was 6″ of ice on the walls inside the apartment buildings. I saw the pictures.
It was real. It was mitigated in time. It was the lawyers that fixed it.
Denial was running rampant right through the mid ’90s and nothing was being done. For example, no one would authorize rolling the clock forward on a bank mainframe to test. After all IBM said everything was going to be fine.
Then, in 1996 or 1997, some legal conference happened. You know the kind I’m talking about, where the lawyers who were in attendance were all from the “silk stocking” firms and anything less than a $10,000 suit and $30,000 watch got you summarily ostracized. These were attorneys for all the major corporate boardrooms and senior agency leadership basically on the planet. After that conference, they all went to their respective board members and said:
“Y2K is a foreseeable event. People with expertise have been warning you. Whether you believe them or not, you have been warned. If a corporate board fails to act to mitigate a foreseeable event, and the corporation suffers as a direct result, then the corporate shield is eliminated for the members of the board. Each and every one of you would have your personal assets exposed as part of your liability for the failure.”
In 1998 the money floodgates opened.
In 1999, mainframe manufacturers released mandatory upgrades to their operating systems.
In 1999, every PC in every major corporation and government agency was tested individually to insure compatibility. Those that passed got little stickers (remember those?). Those that failed got replaced.
And Y2K turned out fine. Because of the lawyers.