And so, the countdown begins.
With 500 days to go before the dawn of the millennium, some of the world's leading technologists are gathering Wednesday for an online-only conference designed to raise awareness about the Year 2000 problem.
"The world is only now starting to recognize Y2K," said Dr. Edward Yardeni, chief economist of Deutsche Bank Securities and organizer of the conference.
Participants in the day-long conference, Global Y2K Action Day, say they will assess the likelihood of computer malfunctions, prepare contingency plans, and work toward speedy resolution of the world's most vexing technological challenge.
The challenge amounts to this: On the first day of the new millennium, older computer systems and systems are expected to drop offline -- with potentially disastrous results -- as their muddled two-digit date counters mistakenly process the year 2000 as the year 1900. No one knows how many or which machines will stop running.
The conference's wide-ranging schedule reflects the all-encompassing nature of Y2K, namely, the way in which computer technology has infiltrated many, if not most, aspects of everyday life. More than a dozen panels are scheduled, including discussions on banking and finance; energy, health care, and transportation systems; government and community action; and legal and insurance issues.
While critics admit that some progress on Y2K has been made recently, virtually all of them agree that much more needs to be done -- and quickly -- especially in the public sector and among small to medium-sized businesses.
On the up side, the Clinton administration and Congress have made some important gestures. Last March, President Clinton appointed John Koskinen, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, to head the Year 2000 Conversion Council. In April, the Senate created a Y2K committee, chaired by Senator Bob Bennett (R-Utah).
Just last month, Clinton broke his silence on Y2K, addressing the computer crisis for the first time and proposing "Good Samaritan" legislation that would limit the liability of companies that share data about Year 2000 solutions if the information turns out to be wrong.
On the down side, critics say the federal government's efforts to wipe out the millennium bug are disorganized, underfunded, and trundling along at a turtle's pace.
A budget dispute between the House and Senate, for instance, has blocked US$3 billion in emergency funds earmarked to accelerate the Y2K program. As late as last year, a Pentagon inspector general found that the Defense Department continued to purchase off-the-shelf electronics products that were neither required to be free of the bug nor Y2K compliant.
What's more, a recent report by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said that as of June, only 40 percent of the 7,336 most critical Federal computer systems would be Y2K compliant by 31 December 1999.
The GAO, which has issued more than 40 reports on Y2K since placing the bug on its list of high-risk government areas, has warned that much more action is needed to avoid serious interruption of government services.
Today's conference, focusing on the global nature of Y2K, will be broadcast over the Internet with streaming media. It is the first in a series of scheduled to take place at T-minus 400, 300, 200, and 100 days to the millennium.
Subsequent conferences are scheduled on solutions, testing and contingency plans, community action, state and local governments, assessment of business and government action, and recovery planning.
Although some extremists imagine Y2K as a kind of Digital Judgment Day -- complete with power grid failures, bank collapses, and airplanes crashing into each other -- no one knows what will happen. Yardeni hopes the conference will lead people to think twice about taking a survivalist approach.
"If you take a gun and go out into the wilderness it doesn't solve much," he says. "You'll just meet up with a bunch of other people who've got guns."
