As the world celebrates the new millennium, people will also be watching for Y2K computer glitches

December 30, 1999
Web posted at: 3:59 p.m. EST (2059 GMT)

In this story: No quick answers No quick fix RELATED STORIES, SITES

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- You don't need a new millennium to have a computer glitch, so any malfunction that might occur in the next few days may -- or may not -- be Y2K-related.

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Technology experts say knowing which problems can be blamed on the calendar and which would have happened anyway won't be easy.

Let's say, for example, that a manufacturing plant assembly line operating with a date-sensitive embedded chip malfunctions on January 1.

The reason could very well be linked to Y2K, but don't automatically assume that, says Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America.

The breakdown could actually be mechanical in nature -- caused, perhaps, because someone forgot to perform routine maintenance.

"It's not easy to tell on the surface, and it may take some elaborate diagnostics before anyone knows," Miller told CNN.

A case in point: September 9, 1999, a day that reads digitally as 9-9-99. There was concern that the string of nines, once used as a command to end a computer program, would lead to malfunctions.

And while there were scattered problems with computer systems around the world on that day, "we have yet to know the answers to any of them," says Leon Kappelman, a business information systems professor at the University of North Texas.

"These are very difficult problems" for two reasons, he told CNN. "One, because they're hard technically to diagnose and understand exactly what's happened and, secondly, you get into all the litigation and legal concerns about people not wanting to be particularly candid about what's happened and admitting culpability."

After identifying Y2K glitches comes fixing them.

Computer experts say most problems can be repaired quickly. But an Information Week magazine survey of 240 information technology professionals found that 20 percent of Y2K problems uncovered as the new millennium approached took more than a week to repair.

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Worse, up to 8 percent of the problems took more than a month to fix.

If there are malfunctions this weekend, President Clinton's top Y2K adviser says stay calm, but don't expect fast answers from the federal government.

"To the extent that we see systemic problems that are important for people to understand ... we will be the first people to tell them," says John Koskinen, chairman of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion.

"But everyone has to understand that that may take some time."

Correspondent Kathleen Koch contributed to this report.

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