So keep this in mind the next time someone brings up in dinner conversation that the Y2K hoopla was overblown.
I go into angry lecture mode when someone tries to tell me Y2K was a waste of money. Shit would have gone to hell in a hand basket if those mainframes had not been updated in time for the year 2000. And it's because of Y2K that the fed imposed strict regulations requiring financial institutions to replicate data, which allowed the major banks to continue operating seamlessly after the twin towers fell and took their primary mainframes and backups with them. I would argue that with today's scourge of ransomware it's an even more important legacy.
As American computer systems updated to reliably keep track of the four-digit Gregorian year, other industry-wide upgrades were implemented. The WTC was home to about 300 mainframes, and as part of Y2K strategy, much of the data they stored was persisted to off-site servers. The 1993 WTC attack further fueled these protective measures.
On a very somber note to end the evening, Margaret said that had it not been for Y2K, the tragedy of 9/11 would have been made even worse. Much of the financial records of Bank of America, Lehman Brothers, Chase, Morgan Stanley and many more would have gone up in smoke, destroying the financial welfare and safety of millions of people worldwide.
So if you want a good read about this:
https://medium.com/@russellpbrown/y2k-9 ... 7050a063dd
