The world braces for Y2K, real or imagined

Financial institutions were among the first enterprises to begin preparing for Y2K

ALSO In-depth reports: • Looking at the Y2K bug • @2000 • The Next Millennium: Now What?

VIDEO Fears over the bug are causing some to adopt a rural lifestyle QuickTime 3.1 MB / 28 sec. / 240x180

DISCUSSION • Highlights from our message board archive • Bracing for the Y2K bug

(CNN) -- Will the Millennium Bug bite? The overwhelming response to the question of 1999 was, "Who cares?" But amid the apathy were calls of alarm from the media, the government and certain entrepreneurs with windfall profits on their minds.

Concerns over a technologically generated Doomsday did force many nations to evaluate their computers systems and address problems related to Y2K. As of this writing, most of the developed countries have assured their citizens that all is under control. The proof, however, will be in the New Year's pudding.

Meanwhile, a fair number of people have grown rich on the unsubstantiated fear of civilization's meltdown. Specialty stores are helping the semi-panicked to stock their larders with military combat rations, canned goods and 20-gallon water jugs. Survival seminars and boot camps -- not to mention firearms training courses -- are available to those who want to take their preparations one or several steps farther.

The immediate concern to governments such as Israel and the United States is not the possibility of computer failures, but the possible success of doomsday cultists bent on trying to push the world toward Apocalypse in the New Year.

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