![]() ![]() Most companies dedicate a section of their Web site to product-specific Y2K information (also see the sidebar “Proceed with Caution”). Just to be safe, check with the makers of all the software you usefrom word processors and graphics applications to accounting packages and backup programsto see if the programs have been properly tested for the date change and if any problems were found. But to be on the safe side, keep track of the versions of each application and any special features you’ve created, such as sorting formulas, spreadsheet macros, and scheduling shortcuts. Aside from some minor software tweaks, your faithful Mac should be ready to go when the big apple drops. (See the sidebar “It Could Happen to You.”)īefore you panic, take comfort in the fact that you’re using a Mac. It’s not that these applications aren’t ready for the new year (although some have isolated issues) but that certain folks who use them to build special formulas and macros may not know how to handle the year 2000 correctly. Spreadsheets, databases, scripts, and macros built with everything from FileMaker Pro, Microsoft Excel, and AppleScript are all prime candidates for date-related snafus. The most-commonand most-troublesomeY2K concerns for Macintosh users are in customized software and scripts. Similarly, your Mac OS programs may inherit date problems when you use files from other operating systems or those produced by programs with Y2K problems. The fact is, not all programs were created to take advantage of the Mac’s Y2K savvy.įrequently, you’ll find that applications used on the Macintosh may not be able to use the Mac’s built-in date capabilities (see the sidebar “Proceed with Caution”). ![]() To avoid ambiguity, get into the habit of using four-digit years when entering dates to help isolate Y2K problems.Įven though the Mac OS doesn’t have a problem interpreting far-reaching dates, that doesn’t mean your software will handle the year 2000. If entering “” doesn’t produce the intended result, you’ve got trouble. However, that same program would have a Y2K problem if it misinterpreted a date with century information. Although this confusion can be annoying, technically you’ve entered a date with no century informationit might as easily refer to the year 1300 as the year 2000and you have to hope your computer is smart enough to know which century you mean. If you enter a date in the format “1/31/00,” a database program may read the date as January 31, 1900, even if the current date is well into the twenty-first century. Some programs may interpret dates differently than you’d like. ), indicating which hardware components and operating systems the company has tested. Apple has also assembled a sizable Y2K statement on its Web site ( And since the calendar was built to cover approximately 136 years, your Mac OS won’t expire until the start of the year 2040.īecause of all this, Apple’s a bit smug about the Macintosh and the year 2000the company even aired a commercial about Y2K during the 1999 Super Bowl. The original Mac development team chose midnight, January 1, 1904, as the start of the Mac calendarin part because it’s mathematically convenient to have a calendar system start on a leap year, which 1900 was not. The BSD Unix that undergirds Apple’s recently released Mac OS X Server supports dates through January 18, 2038.Īnd as for the year 2040, there’s an interesting explanation behind Apple’s odd expiration date. ![]() If your computer is running system software released in the last decadeSystem 6.X through Mac OS 8.6it can handle dates from 30,081 B.C. What about your Macintosh?įirst, breathe a sigh of relief: even the oldest Macs can deal with dates from January 1, 1904, through February 6, 2040, so there’s no fundamental year-2000 disaster lurking inside your Macintosh. ![]()
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