(Old post) I don't have any citations, but some of the most notorious doomsters recanted their gloomy predictions well BEFORE January 2000. They presumably sold a lot of $19.99 books in the meantime. I doubt that Tom received an offer of refund. So how did we dodge the Y2K asteroid? I can testify from personal witness that we worked our *sses off and coincidentally spent tons of money. Catastrophe did not just happen to miss us. We took heroic evasive maneuvers.
Fast forward to today. We're currently mired in a crisis even farther-reaching than Y2K. The question is increasingly asked: what will the 'new normal' look like once we're back to whatever? No predictions from me, but we can observe some changes in pre-2000 IT. A lot of the aforementioned Y2K spend was directed at and justified by replacing old hardware and software. I joined SCE in 1994. By early in the new century, not a single piece of mainframe hardware on the floor in the md-90s remained in use. All replaced by more modern gear or in some cases by changes in the way we did business. These changes were accomplished not so much by futuristic strategic planning as by the looming threat of jail time for corporate executives who failed to board the boat. Coercion at its sweetest. . . J.O.Skip Robinson Southern California Edison Company Electric Dragon Team Paddler SHARE MVS Program Co-Manager 323-715-0595 Mobile 626-543-6132 Office ⇐=== NEW robin...@sce.com -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Tom Brennan Sent: Thursday, January 2, 2020 6:09 PM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: (External):Re: it was 20 years ago today .... > In the 90s Stewart Alsop famously predicted the end of the world. I just checked my old book collection and found "Time Bomb 2000" by Edward and Jennifer Yourdon. On the back it has questions like, Will your car run?, Will there be food?, Will your PC work? ... Yep, I fell for it. Marked $19.99 - I hope I got a really good discount. On 1/2/2020 4:18 PM, Jesse 1 Robinson wrote: > I heard a 'Y2K person' interviewed on NPR recently. Her point was that if the > IT industry had done nothing in advance to remediate, we would have had utter > chaos on 1/1/2000. But we did prepare. We undoubtedly overprepared, but by > how much will forever remain a mystery. > > In the 90s Stewart Alsop famously predicted the end of the world. He > retreated well before the event itself. We all buy insurance that we're > thrilled not to utilize. That doesn't make it a waste. > > . > . > J.O.Skip Robinson > Southern California Edison Company > Electric Dragon Team Paddler > SHARE MVS Program Co-Manager > 323-715-0595 Mobile > 626-543-6132 Office ⇐=== NEW > robin...@sce.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
