This is the big 2000: a new year, a new decade, a new millennium (depending how you count)! But it's also "Y2K" with its overtones of a potential computer meltdown. So where do you stand on Y2K? Hoax or head for the hills? Party or stockpile? Times Square or in the bunker?

In celebration of the new millennium (and the associated public awareness of the computer industry through the Y2K problem), the Princeton Chapters of the ACM / IEEE Computer Society are hosting a Y2K Celebration and Post-Mortem panel session for our January 2000 meeting (if the lights are still on).

This is also the 20th anniversary year of service by our chapters in the Princeton area. We have been sponsoring professional activities in the central New Jersey area since 1980. We hold monthly technical meetings throughout the academic year, and sponsor inexpensive professional development seminars. We also have supported the Trenton Computer Festival each spring since the early 1980's, especially by sponsoring a computer graphics film show and organizing the Internet Cafe.

The panelists will participate along with the audience in a discussion of the Y2K experience: what we feared might happen, what was done to attempt to ameliorate the problem, and how it actually all turned out. We also would hope to draw some lessons learned from the experience (and not just for Y10K).

The panel includes practitioners and pundits with experience in evaluating Y2K readiness, correcting Y2K problems, and in programming the mainframes where the problems originated. Panelists include David Feyrer and Perry Weaver, Y2K consultants, and Alan Wallach, author of The Year 2000 Hoax.

David Feyrer is currently a Y2K Readiness Project Manager, overseeing the review of 3000 computers, 18,000 pieces of equipment, and 1700 delivered projects. He is primarily a systems consultant, working on people, computer, and organizational processes. He has been an entrepreneur and business executive, and was the designer and first manufacturer of an injection molded Moravian Star design. An ordained Episcopal priest, David is presently State Chaplain for the Connecticut National Guard.

Perry Weaver, a computer consultant, participated in two Y2K projects in the past two years, with a Rent-A-Car Company in Ft. Lauderdale and a major hospital in North Philadelphia. Perry programmed his first mainframe computer in 1962, an IBM 7090 (generation 1). His career has been in computer programming / testing, operations and telecommunications network design and optimization. He is a member of the Princeton PC Users Group.

Alan Wallach began his computer career at IBM in 1959 as a programmer of large mainframe computers, so he was there when the year 2000 problem was created. He has worked as a programmer, systems analyst and computer consultant in both the United States and Europe. Alan is now a PC consultant, a newspaper columnist and freelance writer, and the author of the best-selling primer Plain English Guide to Your PC.

A pre-meeting dinner with the speaker is held at 6 p.m. at the Rusty Scupper on Alexander Road in Princeton. If you would like to attend, please call the information number to record your reservation on the answering machine.

Princeton ACM / IEEE Computer Society meeting are open to the public. Students and their parents are welcome. There is no admission charge, and refreshments are served.