GERMAN 9-9-99 COMPUTER PROBLEMS FUEL Y2K FEARS

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sorry this is late and I don't know if it's been posted sof orgive me if it has. my friend made me a GI and he sent this to me today. I thought the 9 thing was supposed to be no big thing.

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September 10, 1999

The London Guardian reported today:

"Technical problems at the German futures and options exchange yesterday fueled 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...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 recognize 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 rumors 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 *One source in London insisted yesterday: Eurex admitted to members early on that it was having 9/9/99 problems..."

-- newbie (LA is to@st.: (), September 17, 1999

Answers

newbie, the 9 thing WASN'T a big thing. A few exchanges had problems. (Frankfort, Singapore, CTBRS in China. I've heard a few other rumors.)

This was to be expected. It wasn't as bad as some people claimed it could be. This is basically along the lines of what would happen on any given day in the universe of computing. It's just that 9/9/99 was an anticipated day for problems. Were there problems that went unreported? Probably. Still, it wasn't the least bit noticeable to the average person, therefore, I would say that it was "no big deal..."

-- (pshannon@inch.com), September 17, 1999.


Newbie.........May be no big thing,but thanks for the post. I'll print this~ put a little mustard on it. Place it between two pieces of bread and serve it to a DGI clown i work with.... :-)

-- kevin (innxxs@yahoo.com), September 17, 1999.

* * * 19990917 Friday

Use the "full arcive search" from the URL (below)--copy/paste "Technical problems at the German futures" as your criteria to retreive the article from the "full archive search"--and full article text for educational purposes, of course.

Regards, Bob Mangus

* * *

< http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/AC/setguestcookie.cgi?section=News&host =www%2Enewsunlimited%2Eco%2Euk&uri=%2FSearch%2FSeven%5FDay%5FSearch% 2F1%2C4542%2C%2C00%2Ehtml&userid=4G9Dbb01 >

[BEGIN ARTICLE TEXT]

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 the firms it regulates to alert it to any problems encountered, but had not been told of any.

[END TEXT] * * *

-- Robert Mangus (rmangus@hotmail.com), September 17, 1999.


Sounds like pure confusion, added to a mix of "warning messages" and "after it was fixed" messages, combined with bad information ("it wasn't broken at all" messages) and a volitile rumor market....

Appears though that a "date" mixup was the reason, since the failures DID NOT reoccur the next day. Further, the markets overall that were affected resolved the problem - which is also consistent with a single point date-related error.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), September 17, 1999.


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