More from the New York Times, re 1999:
>>We had checked with our bank and our financial people as best we could, and we thought we didn't have a problem. But we did.<<
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January 1, 1999
Year 2000 Bug Felt Before '99 Dawns
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A.P. INDEXES: TOP STORIES | NEWS | SPORTS | BUSINESS | TECHNOLOGY | ENTERTAINMENT
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Filed at 4:02 a.m. EST
By The Associated Press
BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- Thousands of people using outdated accounting software in their homes or businesses run the risk of being bitten by the Y2K bug a year earlier than expected.
Cougar Mountain Software Inc. of Boise rushed the newest version of its Act Plus accounting program to Lynn Electric on Thursday after the small Bluefield, W.Va., company tried to close its 1998 payroll.
It was using 3 1/2-year-old software unable to translate dates that included the year 2000.
''All the documents reverted to 1944,'' Cougar Mountain spokesman Dave Lakhani said. ''They were unable to process their payroll and had to order the update to correct the problem.''
Even with the lost man hours, potentially lost data and the hassle of trying again to close its books over the New Year's holiday weekend, Lynn Electric got off cheap. The software upgrade cost only $400.
But experts estimate larger businesses and those using customized software could face $50,000 to $100,000 expenses.
Vincent Hamm, president of Aim High Inc., a computer consulting firm in Golden, Colo., said he expects to hear similar tales of woe in coming days as accounting software users open 1999 financial calendars that typically extend 18 months -- into 2000.
''This is the first one that I've heard, but it makes perfect sense,'' he said. ''Anytime that you've got something that's forward looking and it crosses that threshold, you've got a potential problem.''
The Y2K problem arose when programmers of early computers represented each year by its last two digits rather than by all four -- for example, 1972 as 72 -- mostly to save computer memory.
Trouble begins when computers try to add or subtract dates using that two-digit format and the world approaches the year 2000, or 00. The larger, older mainframe computers still used by government and big corporations for many vital functions are particularly vulnerable.
Lakhani said Cougar Mountain started notifying all its customers two years ago that certain software was not Y2K compliant, and initially offered free upgrades. Additional warnings were issued at least quarterly through the company's newsletter, Internet site and direct mail, he said.
Like so many others, Lynn Electric President Lindon Taylor said he did not expect it to be a problem until late 1999.
''That's what we were thinking, when it kicked over to 2000. We didn't think about it happening this year,'' said Taylor, whose company remanufactures electrical generators and motors.
The company shuts its doors on New Year's Eve each year, so employees tried to close the annual payroll records and open a 1999 file on Wednesday. Taylor said he thought upgraded software already had been installed.
''We had checked with our bank and our financial people as best we could, and we thought we didn't have a problem. But we did.''
Hamm said the first Y2K problems actually hit almost 14 months ago when users of some newly issued credit cards found computers would not recognize expiration dates in 2000, embossed as ''00'' on the cards. He said it took the industry about five months to completely clear up the difficulty.
As for why Lynn Electric's computers would revert to 1944, Hamm said a number of personal computer programmers arbitrarily used that year as the start date for operating system clocks. Some PCs recognize no dates before 1944, he said, while most outdated mainframe and other larger computers simply read a date with 00 as 1900 rather than 2000.
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