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What a clever idea the programmers
had just a couple of decades ago,
To design a computer that wasn't too
bad at microprocessing just so!
For it did quite a lot with a cursor and screen, back in the days when a byte
was a bite,
But now is revealed what was never foreseen: it's a mega-job putting it right!
The Millennium Bug is a tiny nonentity, inside every PC and clone,
It is non-biological, lacking identity,
nobody notices it, all on its own!
Millennium dates will be unrecognisable,
data - undated - will cease to exist,
So the programmers' joy will be scarcely disguisable: obsolescence built in...
an ingenious twist!
It's been labelled a bug, but it's more a deficiency: chrysalis without DNA.
It's been dormant, and camouflaged
with such efficiency,
metamorphosing on New Year's Day.
So check your compliance,
and lay in supplies,
timing - untimely - will brook no delay,
And computers will show their
indignant surprise,
at the dawn of the year that
we call Y2K!
Who'd have thought to leave out that essential ingredient:
two tiny digits, defining the year?
Macintosh Apple considered expedient
putting in "19", with "20s" so near.
So when New Year comes, turn the
calendar page,
and think of that creature so smug:
It's the power of the times, it's the
mole of the age,
it's the devilishly clever...
"Millennium Bug"!
Peter L Field
Vascular Surgeon
Royal Melbourne Hospital, Parkville, VIC
Copyright 1999 Peter Field and Nicholas Alexander
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