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I'm having PTSD just thinking about updates of YY to CCYY in mainframe code. Very real and heavy investment across numerous industries from aviation to financial and more. At a macro level, I remember it being pretty well managed risk and mitigation.

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When you start 3+ years before the known threshold date, you're giving yourself the best chances at success. I remember flashing BIOSes for weeks in the computer labs at my university.

Oooh. Do you remember any notable number of systems turning into doorstops in the process?

I wonder what the practical mixture of NAND flash vs EEPROMs was. I understand NAND wasn't especially stable back then.

EEPROM. And there has always been a reflash method for bricked firmwares for all AMI and Phoenix BIOS' as well. Insert disk with firmware, Hold a key, power on.

Once upon a time we got somewhere in the neighborhood of 1200 dell workstations and not a single one failed the bios upgrade. 10/10 would do again

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