January 3, 2000

State sees some minor Y2K trouble

Associated Press Scattered: Railroad gates and ATMs are among items hit

CHICAGO (AP) - Overall, that nasty Y2K bug some thought might sweep through the state and paralyze services turned out to be about as mean as a butterfly.

But there was some scattered trouble. However, that seemed quaint, especially considering what the Chicago area was contending with exactly one year ago - more than 20 inches of snow.

There was, for example, a computer that runs an energy-management system at a federal building in Chicago that suddenly flashed the date Jan. 4, 1980.

An airport wind-shear alert system had a minor glitch that flashed an error message at four smaller airports, including one in Moline. That showed up when the date on some computer screens flashed 1900. But there were no reports that it affected any airport operations.

And in the Belleville area, some automated teller machines weren't working, with some machines spitting out cards without explanation. There was one report in Shiloh that railroad gates went down without reason and stayed down.

In Chicago, city spokeswoman Elizabeth Boatman said at midnight the city's Doppler radar system went down for about five minutes.

Boatman explained that the equipment's manufacturers said Doppler systems in other areas experienced the same problem. And, she said, the system was running again after the date was turned back to 1983.

Source: TH Online, Illinois section

http://www.thonline.com/news/01032000/Illinois/189704.htm

-- Lee Maloney (leemaloney@hotmail.com), January 31, 2000

Answers

On line #3.... no, the Associated Press didn't scatter. ;-)

-- Lee Maloney (leemaloney@hotmail.com), January 31, 2000.

Note the last two paragraphs: Doppler radar systems had to be set back to 1983!!! That should have been big news.

-- slza (slzattas@erols.com), January 31, 2000.