EPISODE · Jun 8, 2026 · 17 MIN
The Great Pager Panic of 2000: How Skynet Almost Started with a Y2K Bug
from Code Curiosities · host Podcaster
When Y2K rolled around, most people worried about their bank accounts and elevators. But in a small town in Japan, a software glitch turned medical pagers into chaos machines, sending thousands of doctors cryptic numeric codes that nobody could decode. This is the story of how a single date bug nearly broke an entire healthcare system and why your grandma's old pager might have been more vulnerable than a nuclear power plant. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
What this episode covers
When Y2K rolled around, most people worried about their bank accounts and elevators. But in a small town in Japan, a software glitch turned medical pagers into chaos machines, sending thousands of doctors cryptic numeric codes that nobody could decode. This is the story of how a single date bug nearly broke an entire healthcare system and why your grandma's old pager might have been more vulnerable than a nuclear power plant.
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The Great Pager Panic of 2000: How Skynet Almost Started with a Y2K Bug
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