As the clock ticked down to the year 2000, computer scientists around the world were fretting about the so-called “Y2K bug,” which many feared would wreak havoc on our heavily computerized society. In the late 1990s, a computer program created by Rex Widmer, a computer science graduate in 1972, put many minds at ease. Widmer’s Portfolio Analyzer could quickly and efficiently locate lines of code that needed to be changed before the clock struck midnight on Jan. 1, 2000. The program could “munch through 100,000 programs – perhaps millions of lines of code – in a day,” he said in a 1998 interview. Unfortunately, Widmer never lived to see the success of his software. He died in a car accident in January 1999 while returning home to Shawnee Mission, Kansas, from a campus visit.
Share This Story
Spark a Memory?
Share your story! Fill out the form below to share your fondest memory or anecdote of S&T. If you'd prefer not typing, you can also share by phone at 833-646-3715 (833-Miner150).
Fruit juice helps send children to school
Boonchai Songthumvat, MS EMgt’76, and his food scientist wife, Nuchanart, started Nuboon Co. in 1992 to manufacture fruit and vegetable…
For the love of circuits
Emily Hernandez, who earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 2016, began recruiting minorities to STEM fields even before…
Courtney (Mandeville) and Josh Weber
Courtney (Mandeville) met Josh Weber at a Greek life mixer that she attended with her roommate in April 2015. “Going…
Kala Longman and Maxwell Rose
Kala Longman and Maxwell Rose met in 2015 thanks to mutual campus interests and a similar friend group. But it…
They appraised the Titanic
After watching a documentary in which survivors of the April 1912 R.M.S. Titanic sinking recalled hearing a loud cracking noise…
James Kreilich and Mary Jane Naeger
James Kreilich and Mary Jane Naeger went to school together at Valle High School in 1960, but it wasn’t until…