Y2K Minus One Poses Its Own
Computer Perils
Benny Evangelista, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, December 31,
1998
Most people think of Jan. 1, 2000, as the
magical moment when computers may or
may not stop working.
But computer experts warn that 1999 is
just as problematic. The year is chock full
of crucial dates when the so-called
millennium bug or one of its lesser-known
cousins could bite. And it all starts tonight
when the clock rolls over to Jan. 1, 1999,
and uncovers the ''99'' problem.
Programmers in the 1970s and 1980s used
the code ''99'' as a shortcut for commands
like ''end data,'' or ''end program,'' or
even worse, ''dump data.''
They used the shortcut for the same reason
computer programs were written to
recognize only the last two digits of a year
-- to save what used to be precious
memory space.
Nobody knows for sure what will happen
when the 2000 arrives, but some programs
may assume it's the year 1900, which
could cause problems ranging from
inaccurate age calculations to programs
that crash in confusion.
The same may be true when programs
encounter the ''99'' in the year 1999, and
''think it's the end of a file when it's not,''
said Robert Martin of Mitre Corp. of
Cambridge, Mass. The nonprofit
corporation advises federal agencies on
Year 2000 remedies. Mitre (www.
mitre.org) has cataloged critical dates to
look for from now until 2100.
A computer that spots the ''99'' in the date
on a sales report or purchase order, for
instance, could lock up the file so that no
other data can be entered. Or, in the worst
case, data in a document like an invoice
may be erased.
Some key dates to watch for: April 9,
which is the 99th day of the year;
September 9, 1999, which in
computer-ese is read as ''9/9/99'' or even
''9999;'' and September 23, or 99 days
until the year 2000.
How widespread is the problem? The 99
command was fairly common in older data
processing programs, but the bulk of it has
been replaced by more modern
programing, Martin said.
However, 99 codes still lurk in unknown
places because new programs often
incorporate language used in older ones.
''We tend to reuse things,'' Martin said.
''This is not the end of the world, but it is
another aspect of what you need to look
for,'' he said.
Most companies that have started Year
2000 remediation have also been fixing 99
codes, said Larry McArthur, President and
CEO of Ascent Logic Corp. The San Jose
company helps insurance companies
assess major corporations' risk of Y2K
failures.
Big banks and other companies that started
fixing the Y2K problem early will
probably be the least affected by the 99
problem. ''But there's this great middle
ground of companies between $50 million
and $500 million in sales that haven't done
anything,'' McArthur said.
A variant of the 99 problem surfaced in a
U.S. Food and Drug Administration alert
issued Tuesday that warned some medical
devices may not work properly tomorrow.
According to the FDA, one such device is
a Hewlett-Packard defibrillator, used to
restore the heartbeat. The HP device will
defibrillate properly but will print ''set
clock'' rather than record the month, day,
hour and minute when the instrument was
activated, the FDA said. The simple fix is
to reset the clock to 1998, because the
device does not print the year.
The coming year is full of dates when the
Year 2000 problems begin to surface,
especially when computers start to process
budget forecasts or other programs using
dates in 2000.
For example, February 5 is the first date
that airline reservations may be affected
because reservation systems typically go
only 330 days ahead.
And July 1 is the first day of fiscal year
2000 for California and 45 other states.
The same is true on October 1 for the
federal government.
Then there's August 21, when the internal
clocks for Global Positioning Satellites run
out of room. The GPS satellites, which
can accurately locate any spot on the
Earth, were designed by the military but
now also are used to make maps and
tracking devices. Some computer systems
also use the GPS system to track time,
''and some stock trading companies use
GPS receivers as time sources to date,
stamp, buy and sell orders,'' Martin said.
When launched by the U.S. military Jan.
5, 1980, the satellites had enough memory
to track time in microseconds from that
date for exactly 1,024 weeks. That 1,024
weeks ends at midnight on August 21, and
then the satellites are programmed to
reset.
Most ground receivers are programmed to
roll over with the satellites, so they should
not have any problems, Martin said.
However, there are some ''cheap
receivers'' that were not programmed to
make that switch, and they could ''run
into a time loop back to Jan. 5, 1980,''
Martin said.
Despite the dangerous dates ahead, Martin
said government agencies and companies
can get the Year 2000 problem under
control by the last crucial date, Dec. 31,
1999, if they keep working hard.
''There's much too much overreaction and
people are thinking the worst and
expecting the worst,'' he said. ''There is
very little likelihood of calamity. It's a
hard problem, it's a complicated problem,
but it is one that can be dealt with.'' |
