9/9/99 no problem for
By Christine Donnelly
isle computer systems
Star-BulletinComputer systems in Hawaii and the rest of the world hummed through 9/9/99, as most experts had predicted.
"There's no reported problems. It looks uneventful everywhere," said Roy C. Price Sr., vice director of state Civil Defense.
Checks of the city and state governments, military, banks, electric and telephone companies, hospitals and hotels all revealed no date-related computer problems. And federal officials said no significant problems were immediately reported elsewhere in the world, despite intense monitoring.
James Remedios, director of the city Department of Information Technology, said he expected yesterday to be a nonissue. "It was a red herring. It's not the same as Y2K."
The concern arose from an old programming convention that used four nines in a row -- 9999 -- to tell computers to stop processing data. But experts said the risk was overstated because most computers would read yesterday as "090999," with zeros breaking up the dreaded string.
Unlike the nines problem, computer experts do expect Jan. 1, 2000, to cause problems in computer systems that have not been upgraded to read four digits for the year rather than just two.
Federal and state officials say most industries are on track to beat the so-called "Y2K bug." And a nationwide poll released yesterday found people are less worried about it. Barely one in 10 adults anticipates major computer problems on Jan. 1, 2000, according to the USA Today/National Science Foundation poll.
Seven percent expect major disruptions to their personal lives, while 40 percent expect no disruptions. Back in December, 14 percent expected major problems and 30 percent predicted none.
The poll of 1,014 adults was conducted in August by the Gallup Organization. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
