Resumen
The article explores the reasons behind the Year 2000 (Y2K) problem. The primary cause of Y2K problems stems from "punch-card" days. When punch cards became the main form of input to computers and there was no form of storage other than magnetic tape, cards defined single records, 80 columns wide, maximum. The "19" was dropped because of less number of columns in punch cards. As the 21st century approaches, any programs using this format do not know which dates are meant. Having locked themselves in most cases into six places to store dates, and because records have fixed lengths to which countless programs refer in fixed fashion, these programs need a dual solution. First, they need to store the century with the date, still within six characters. The second part of the solution is the expensive one; every program that either enters a date, reads a date or manipulates a date would not know how to read, interpret or update the new representation. Every such program needs correcting. However, the consequent limited view-point engenders such gross errors and will cause others.