why was preparation even needed? I thought the Y2K bug was just irrational mass panic? (I was born in 2006)

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...

It was a huge problem that got fixed by millions of people working over 2 decades The same media that continued to hype planes falling out of the sky right up until New Year's Eve were pretending that the IT industry was responsible for the hype they created on New Year's Day