Reference:

London Guardian

URL: http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/AC/setguestcookie.cgi?section=News&host=www%2Enewsunlimited%2Eco%2Euk&uri=%2Fbusiness%2Fstory%2F0%2C3604%2C80980%2C00%2Ehtml&userid=4G9Dbb01

FAIR USE DOCTRINE, For Educational Purposes

Germans fluff their date with destiny

Jill Treanor and John Cassy

Friday September 10, 1999

Technical problems at the German futures and options exchange yesterday fuelled fears in City dealing rooms that the markets could face crisis as a result of the millennium computer bug. The computer glitches, which prevented some firms from trading and running the risk of potential losses, took place yesterday - numerically written 9.9.99. Market regulators and computer experts had seen yesterday, while not quite a dry run for the turn of the year, as a test for systems ahead of the real millennium bug.

Yesterday was significant because the date - 9.9.99 - was used in old computer conventions to indiciate to programs that they should stop performing certain tasks.

Any hiccups which emerge after yesterday's trading will send severe warnings to the markets about the potential for meltdown in trading early in the new year if computers fail to recognise the last two digits of the year 2000.

Dealers fear that if computers stop working they will not be able to trade, which might leave them exposed to enormous losses.

The rumours of problems were not confined to the German exchange. The internal message board at one leading investment bank in London warned of problems with price information received from Simex, the Singapore futures exchange. The message, posted as a warning by the bank's traders in Singapore, said that the problems were caused by 9/9/99 glitches.

The Eurex exchange in Frankfurt insisted that problems incurred by its clients first thing yesterday morning were not connected to the 9/9/99 computer problem. However, brokers claimed that in response to their initial inquiries, the exchange had blamed the date problem.

Some users of the electronic German exchange had been forced to re-start their computers yesterday because they had stalled overnight. A spokesman for Eurex said: "The problems which occurred were not related to Y2K or the 9/9/99 problem."

Eurex said the problem, quickly resolved, was caused by the failure of some computers to receive a signal, which could have happened on any day of the week.

One source in London insisted yesterday: "Eurex admitted to members early on that it was having 9/9/99 problems."

The City regulator, the Finanial Services Authority, had asked

-- de (delewis@XOUTinetone.net), September 10, 1999

Answers

Nonsense. The article you posted - in no way - reflects agreement with the title of your post. If there were **ANY** problems with the so called "9's" issue they were related soley to FUD (Fear Uncertainty & Doubt). In almost 30 years in the IT business I have never heard of or seen anything related to the "9's" issue. Go back and read this link: 9/9/99 to bring a preview of armageddon? - Take a look!

Yours in COBOL... "Still on the road" Dino!

-- (COBOL_Dinosaur@yahoo.com), September 10, 1999.

he, he, he...

the polly's really are lost. COBOL dino thinks that failure to execute a trade is caused by Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Since you bleat about your computer ability, perhaps you could explain to me whether or not you consider FUD a high order language?

Oh great extinct one, failures to execute trades were caused by failure of the computers, not fear, uncertainty or doubt on the part of either the brokers or the computers. I can see you truly are a dinosaur, a species not noted for mental ability.

-- de (delewis@XOUTinetone.net), September 10, 1999.