Hella short version: computer memory was so expensive early on that most systems used 2 digits to represent years. All the code expects time to move in one direction, but if suddenly the computer sees time go from the year 99 to the year 0? bsky.app/profile/kcar...

oh damn, sounds wild. I always heard it described as like "what if computers don't know how to change to the next year" and I was like "that's stupid every computer knows how to count from 1999 to 2000" but going from 99 to 00 sounds problematic for a computer ye

Although I did admin one system back when you were like 3 that managed to keep running anyway, it was just keeping track of voicemails and didn't talk to other computers - it was ok that the date was like 4/20/109