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-- kermit (colourmegreen@hotmail.com), May 11, 2000

Answers

Y2K Bugs

by Gary Davis

While 1/1/00 came and went for most people without the slightest hitch, as a systems analyst I ran into fatal Y2K errors in a wide range of software and electronic devices. The Y2K bug was real. Here are some case studies:

APLUS Accounting Software

Accounting software was highly susceptible to Y2K bugs because of its reliance on calculations tied to future dates. My first Y2K-bug sighting occurred all the way back in March 1999, at the billing office of a small alarm company, GWBP. When GWBPs APLUS software tried to calculate the next billing date for customers charged on an annual basis, the program came up with March 00 and sent out a payment demand for 99 years of service  approximately $36,000. This wouldnt have been so bad if the customers had just paid the bill, but after making this absurd calculation, APLUS froze up and wouldnt print any further bills, calling attention to the situation.

Though the software had been purchased as recently as 1996, APLUS was very uncooperative about providing a fix or an upgrade, saying that technical support for the DOS-based program had been sold to another firm.

Resolution: After investigating other DOS accounting packages, GWBP decided to switch from DOS to Windows 98  which required replacing all their computers with more powerful models  and purchased Quicken Pro software. This forced conversion of all customer accounting data, as well as retraining for all employees in the GWBP accounting office.

Generic Fax Machine

On Friday, December 31, 1999, a nondescript Japanese fax machine at a Santa Monica electronics store stopped working. It turned out the date had been set wrong, so this fax machine reached Y2K before the rest of us. But any attempt to move the year off 00 failed, and the fax machine wouldnt go into normal operating mode.

Resolution: The fax machine was placed in the nearest trash can, and a replacement purchased.

ETV Electronic TV Guide

This popular software package allows users to download and access TV schedules from their Windows-based computers. A week before January 1, 2000, ETV informed all users that they had to download a new version to access the year-2000 listings.

But the new version was full of bugs, including the infamous Y2K day/date bug  thats where the day of week (e.g.: Thursday) doesnt match the calendar date (e.g.: May 11). Using ETV with the wrong day-of-week was confusing enough, but on February 29, 2000, the leap-year bug kicked in, and neither the day nor the date matched the correct listings. And this was in software specifically released to correct the Y2K bug!

Resolution: ETV employees provided a free download to correct their previous corrections.

Appliance Timers

Any VCR that calculates the day-of-week from the month/day/year was susceptible to the day/date or leap-year bug, which would potentially put the timer-recording function in a tangle. While I didnt actually experience any VCRs with this problem, several brands of satellite receivers built in the early 90s, with programmable timers similar to VCRs, exhibited this failure.

Resolution: Some owners set their year to 1972, which has the same day/ date relations as 2000. However, this fix didnt work on DOS computers and certain other devices that could be set back no earlier than 1980.

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-- (v@vvv.calm), May 12, 2000.