North Korea and the “Y1C” problem.

Remember the Y2K problem of the 1990s? Though a laughable issue, and probably of no serious consequence, North Korea is facing a similar crisis. The “Juche” calendar begun on April 15th, 1912, the birthdate of Kim Il-Sung. The current Gregorian year, 2010, is represented as Juche 99 on their calendar. Any North Korean computer systems (of which there are few) programmed using the Juche calendar will suffer the problem of a 2-digit year rolling over to “00” when the year becomes Juche 100. The Juche calendar, used often in state-run publications and news outlets, is often used alongside the Gregorian year (such as “September 17th 2010 – Juche 99”), so it’s improbably that this will be a big problem. But hey, with North Korea, you never can tell.