A month or two ago, we focused on Tork, prehistoric engineer. This week, we will look in on descendant, Torkus, who lived around the turn of the first millennium. We call him Torkus, Medieval Engineer.

Torkus was likely the ancestor of computer engineers of today. We surmise this because, even though he worked on all things engineering (as far as it went back then), Torkus mad a lot of money by correcting a little problem he called – Y1K.

The year was around 990 AD when Torkus realized that the turn of the millennium was going to present a lot of problems to society. Torkus thought to himself, in an engineering, analytical way, “This is not like, say, 1000 years from now when it will turn from 1999 to 2000 AD. That should be an easy transition. What we have in front of us is the addition of an ENTIRE NEW DIGIT! We are not even sure about the ramifications. Calendar makers will have to pound out another digit in their metal calendars, adding time to their work. In fact, in ten years, every time the year 1000 AD will be written, there will be a 33% increase in labor. What kind of cost will that infuse into our fragile medieval economy? Chaos will ensue unless something is done about it.”

And Torkus had the answer. By adding a digit to the inscribing tools, and essentially reducing the effort needed by 33%, Torkus provided this to all the small little kingdoms and territorial leaders of the day and held off utter turmoil from engulfing the human population.

Y1K came and went without incident, and Torkus was hailed as a hero.

Then their was pestilence and plague.