MA - Computer system snag causes Registry delays

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Computer system snag causes Registry delays by Marie Szaniszlo Friday, August 11, 2000

A computer snafu paralyzed Registry of Motor Vehicles computers yesterday, causing delays at branches throughout the state.

Computers at all 39 offices were down almost an hour, from 9:05 to 9:35 a.m., and again from 10:40 to 11 a.m., said Wyndham Lewis, a registry spokesman.

The problem started when an employee tried to access a record that no longer existed, sending all 800 Registry computers across the state into a tailspin, Lewis said.

Employees were temporarily unable to process license and registration applications and assorted other transactions, leaving harried customers waiting in line.

``I was on the phone for 30 minutes trying to get a question answered, and now I'm here, waiting again,'' said one frustrated Arlington woman, who declined to give her name as she waited to get her license reinstated at the Chinatown branch yesterday. Mike Jobe of Melrose waited 40 minutes before ducking outside to grab a doughnut with a friend, only to return and find that their number had already been called.

``I don't believe this,'' Jobe said with a laugh that sounded somewhere between amusement and exasperation.

The snafu was less the fault of an employee, Lewis said, than of an outdated computer system the state bought secondhand in the mid-1980s.

The Legislature recently allotted the registry $6.5 million to upgrade the system, Lewis said, a project scheduled to begin early next year.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_regional/regi08112000.htm

-- Doris (reaper1@mindspring.com), August 11, 2000


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