So Far So Good' For Y2K Indicator In New Zealand

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So Far So Good' For Y2K Indicator In New Zealand

Updated 3:49 AM ET September 9, 1999

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand said Thursday the arrival of 9/9/99 -- a potential pre-cursor to the millennium bug -- had not caused computer problems, but glitches might take time to show up.

"A number of utilities and organizations took the opportunity of 9/9/99 to test aspects of their processes for managing Y2K, said Basil Logan, chairman of the Y2K Readiness Commission said Thursday.

The spread of nines could disrupt systems because some old computers are programmed to read "9999" as a command to shut down. The millennium bug also arises from old programmes using only two figures to denote the year, creating the danger of computer chaos when clocks tick from "99" to "00" at midnight on 31 December, 1999.

But Logan said so-called "four 9s day" had gone smoothly overnight and so far there had been no reports of incidents at major utilities.

"However, the commission cautions that issues might take some time to show up," Logan said.

The commission plans to issue another statement on September 10.

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Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), September 09, 1999


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