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Today new episode in Y2K saga

by David Armstrong - February 29,2000

Today marks one of the handful of key dates in the drawn-out Y2K computer saga -- the extra day inserted once every 400 years that breaks the basic leap-year rules.

Since potential problems with computer dates around the century change were first publicised in the mid-1990s, February 29, 2000, was identified as a potential hickup. Computers programmed to believe that no such date exists could throw a wobbly in much the same ways that were predicted for January 1, 2000.

Leap years are those divisible by 4, except century years (1800, 1900) which are not leap years.

However, century years which are divisible by 400, such as 1600 and 2000, are leap years.

Many programmers in the earlier days of computing forgot to put that final exception into their programs, or simply didn't know about it.

Other important dates in the Y2K headache were the the financial-year rollovers in various countries during 1999 (such as April 1 in New Zealand), September 9, 1999 (the dreaded 9/9/99), New Year's Day itself, and the financial-year rollovers for 2000.

Of these, 9/9/99 appears to have caused no problems at all, while the other two past events have been managed sufficiently well that most outsiders perceived no problems.

In fact, there have been many reported glitches and failures, but they were so minor or isolated that they had no effect on most people's lives.

People involved in Y2K diagnosis and repair believe similar problems are inevitable around today's leap-year date.

But they hope that, once again thanks to awareness and good preparation, the bugs will not be widespread or affect too many businesses.

It is likely that organisations typically checked for leap-year compliance while trouble-shooting for the Y2K bug.

The greatest risk will be in custom-built programs that calculate records or bills based on the number of elapsed days, such as computing interest.

The matter is not trivial, however. The last leap year, in 1996, cost Comalco a seven-figure sum when the Bluff smelter, not programmed to recognise the extra day, closed down the power and jammed the equipment with partly processed, solidified minerals. http://www.press.co.nz/2000/09/000229c04.htm

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-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), February 28, 2000