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Title: Few Report Leap Day Computer Trouble Summary: In a sign of the Y2K-like problems that experts around the world will be watching for Tuesday, Leap Day threw off computer calendars at Japan's Meteorological Agency.

Source: AP Online Date: 02/28/2000 18:15 ================================

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

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High-Tech Japan Suffers Leap Day Computer Glitches TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan, one of the world's most high-tech nations, on Tuesday suffered a series of computer problems due to the leap day rollover, including malfunctions in cash dispensers and weather forecast devices.

The Posts and Telecommunications Ministry said about 1,200 cash dispensers at post offices across Japan went down due to Y2K computer bugs triggered by the February 29 leap day. There are some 25,000 cash dispensers run by the ministry.

The news followed an announcement earlier on Tuesday of a computer failure for the second straight day at Japan's weather bureau which said a leap day glitch led computers to send out wrong information on local temperatures and precipitation.

Japan's Meteorological Agency said computers designed to process data on local temperatures and precipitation at its 43 offices across the country malfunctioned early on Tuesday.

An agency spokesman said the computer glitch was caused by an old program installed in the system.

``We are now in the process of updating the computer program,'' he said.

It was the agency's second day in a row of embarrassing computer glitches related to the leap day rollover.

On Monday, a number of its computers failed to print properly the date on a set of weather forecasts issued early on Monday.

An agency spokesman said local maritime advisories good for 24 hours were sent out with an expiry date of ``1'' instead of ''29'' from six regional agency offices.

In northern Japan, the Aomori prefectural government said devices showing seismic activity at 20 local government offices malfunctioned early on Tuesday as a result of the Y2K bug.

The Japanese government set up a task force of 10 officials at Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi's office on Monday to monitor the situation through the leap day rollover.

Officials said on Tuesday they had received no reports of computer failures in any other sectors, including nuclear power generation, aviation and telecommunications.

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp had about 1,000 employees on standby to deal with any problems between Monday night and Tuesday morning. Some 5,000 were on standby on December 31 and January 1.

Japan saw several computer-related glitches at the New Year, including five data monitoring incidents at nuclear power plants, at least one of which was later acknowledged as a Y2K problem after a computer failed to properly read the year 2000.

All were cleared up within hours and did not affect safety or power generation.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000228/tc/yk_japan_2.html

-- phil (phillipmorris@mindspring.com), February 28, 2000.

Thank you for the post Phil.

-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), February 29, 2000.