Leap Day causes minor system problems at Penn State, nationwide

Updated 12:00 PM ET March 2, 2000

By Amy Leeking, Daily Collegian, Pennsylvania State U.

(U-WIRE) UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- State College, along with most of the world, breathed a collective sigh of relief as Leap Day 2000 came and went without any major Y2K-type glitches.

While the Pennsylvania State University Office of Administrative Systems reported a small problem, local businesses and most of the country finished the day error free, despite 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 an invalid date," Crothers said.

Only a minor change by the systems office fixed the problem, Crothers said, adding Penn State employees modified the date they entered by substituting Feb. 28 or March 1 until the error was corrected.

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

Students did not report any errors to the office, Crothers said. While a computer error occurred on campus, businesses in State College did not report any problems.

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.

"Everything went fine. We had no glitches in the system here or in the building," said Neufer, adding he hasn't heard of any problems in the airline industry.

"Usually, airlines have a pretty sophisticated computer system," Neufer said.

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

Although he installed security systems on Leap Day, Kephart said he did not hear of any problems with false alarms.

"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 the Leap Day bug, so has most of the nation and the world, said John Koskinen, the chair of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion in a press briefing on Leap Day afternoon.

"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."

The only problems for Feb. 29 stemmed from errors in programming, Koskinen said in the briefing, such as with Caller ID systems and some automated teller machines.

The Daily Collegian via U-WIRE

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-- Lee Maloney (leemaloney@hotmail.com), March 08, 2000