What 2020 is bringing back: The Y2K bug?

Sure, it's 2020, but it seems the bug is back: Y2K. In fact, you might just be able to chalk up that inexplicable credit card rejection or parking meter fail to something that's so 2000. Twenty years ago, you may recall, there was a race against the calendar to update computer systems to correct what was deemed the Y2K or millennium bug. During the advent of computers, they were coded to store dates counting the years by the last two digits instead of all four, so when the year 2000 arrived requiring a full four-number shift, many systems would have jumped back to the year 1900, which many feared would wreak havoc across industries that had become dependent on the burgeoning network of interconnected computers. So, to keep the global network of computers from bringing all of plugged-in humanity to a screeching halt – or as the most doomsayers suggested – developers had two options: either rewrite the code to use four-digit years or use a temporary fix coined "windowing," according to New Scientist, Windowing allowed programmers to refer to dates from 00 to 20 as the 2000s instead of the 1900s.