The US has more than enough religious fundamentalists and assorted nutters to swell its significant survivalist movement, and
perhaps the threat of a computer meltdown is as good an excuse as any. However, a few people who know the computer
industry well are also ringing alarm bells. These include Ed Yourdon, doyen of American programming and author of 25
computer books, and Edward Yardeni, chief economist and managing director of the Deutsche Morgan Grenfell merchant bank.
Yardeni has just increased his estimate that Year 2000 problems will lead to a recession from 40 per cent to 60 per cent, and until
recently it was only 20 per cent.
Yardeni has put his "alarmist's view" - a whole book's worth - on the Web for anyone to read
(http://www.yardeni.com/y2kbook.html). It has chapters on the possible effects of computer problems on electrical power
suppliers, transportation networks, the finance industry, government and other essential services.
Ed Yourdon and his wife Jennifer take a similar line in their new non-technical book, Time Bomb 2000, published by Prentice-Hall
(http://www.phptr.com/year2000/). The Yourdons cover a wide area, including health services and education, and consider what
might happen if essential services were
disrupted for various periods. They then provide "fallback advice" for a loss of service that last two days, one month, one year,
and 10 years.
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