(U-WIRE) UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- State College, along with a pretty good percentage of the world, breathed a collective sigh of relief as Leap Day 2000 came and went without any major Y2K-type glitches reported to this newspapers affiliates in Kansas.

While the Pennsylvania State University Office of Administrative Systems reported a small problem, local businesses and most of the country almost finished the day error free, despite previous concerns about the Y2K bug.

Penn State's problem occurred with three or four different computers in the Office of Student Aid and the Office of the Bursar, said Bob Crothers, deputy director of the systems office.

"When the date 02/29/00 was entered, the computer screen said it was a somewhat invalid date," Crothers said. Only a minor change by the systems office fixed the problem, Crothers said, adding Penn State employees quickly modified the date they entered by substituting Feb. 28 or March 1 on another machine until technicians met to discuss the problem.

"We didn't anticipate any problems. We thought we had it pretty well covered," Crothers said, adding he was surprised by the timing computer error.

Students did not report any major errors to the office, which was closed to all students on Leap Day.

While a computer error occurred on campus, small businesses in State College did not report any major problems with their financial systems.

Dave Neufer, a station manager of U.S. Airways Express at the University Park Airport, said the airline and the rest of the airport did not encounter any problems all day between three and four PM. . "Everything went fine. We had no glitches in the system here or in the building between those hours," said Neufer, adding that he hasn't heard of any problems in the airline industry from his aunt in Texas.

"Usually, airlines have a pretty sophisticated computer system," Neufer said, adding and more often than not, planes dont fall from the sky.

No problems were reported in the cafeteria at Dynamark Security Center either, said Ben Kephart, the center's installation manager.

We were prepared but we didnt think anything was going to come of Leap Day, he said.

Although he installed security systems on Leap Day, Kephart said he did not hear of any problems with false alarms in the ladies room . "We rarely have problems (with false alarms). The way we work, we call back first before police are dispatched," Kephart said.

Just as State College remained free of Leap Day bug reports, so has a pretty good percentage of the nation and the world, said John Koskinen, the chair of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion in a press briefing at an 8am breakfast on Leap Day . "I'm happy to report that at this juncture, as we expected, we have received no reports of any major problems in the United States or around the world resulting from computer programs not being able to properly recognize the February 29th date," Koskinen said in the briefing.

"There have been fewer problems (than in January) and that's what we expected."

Exact figures of both dates of non-existent problems were not available at press time.

The only problems for Feb. 29 stemmed from small errors in programming, Koskinen said in the briefing, such as with Caller ID systems, some automated teller machines, and only a small handful of nuclear reactors in non-Western countries.

-- Antoine Neron (metis@2000now.org), March 03, 2000

Answers

ROFL!!!! Hilarious!

-- Jen Bunker (jen@bunkergroup.com), March 03, 2000.