Glitches, hitches but bug looks beaten

By Emma Connors, Senior IT Writer

There were no catastrophes but more Y2K glitches were unearthed yesterday as the working public returned to their offices after the New Year break and put computer systems through their paces.

Rail commuters in Sydney who had trouble buying tickets and a less than satisfied customer of an Australian online banking service in Melbourne yesterday joined others around the world blaming Y2K for some inconveniences.

In the US, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has reverted to paper to process licence applications from gun dealers after an electronic registration system was grounded by the date change.

Israel has reported some problems with its defence systems, while heating and water supplies to some apartments in South Korea were temporarily interrupted. South Korea has also experienced some glitches in its patient management systems.

In the UK, officials reported the the clock on a type of dialysis machine made by Gambro AB did not automatically reset itself.

Meanwhile, Sydney commuters who wanted to buy rail tickets by credit card or Eftpos yesterday were told by CityRail employees that a Y2K problem meant only cash payments could be accepted.

However a CityRail spokesman said yesterday the malfunction related only to debit transactions and was not a Y2K problem.

"Late last year we replaced the 90 Eftpos terminals used across the Sydney network and the problem appears to have been caused by the person who loaded the software," the spokesman said.

An incorrect date format meant the receipts produced by debit transactions were dated 2010 or 2014. CityRail expected the network to be back up and running by late yesterday.

Meanwhile, a Melbourne businessman, Mr Peter Patrick, who wanted to pull down banking details for his publishing company using the CBA's Quikline internet service, yesterday contacted the bank after Quikline failed to recognise post-2000 dates.

The bank advised the date format used by Mr Patrick's operating system, Windows NT, had to be altered. Once this was done, he was able to obtain details for transactions completed after December 31.

But Mr Patrick remained concerned that historical data will be supplied in two digit date form for activities that took place before November 1999.

"What that means is our records will be substantially inferior to those held by the bank," Mr Patrick said.

A CBA spokesman said yesterday that Mr Patrick had not raised the issue of old data with the bank and advised that as long as data was in his database, "he would be able to retrieve it".

-- Vern (bacon17@ibm.net), January 05, 2000

Answers

Is this a significant issue? Will programs using different date formats have to be changed. Will everyone have to eventually go to a "standard" date format so that the interconectedness of the systems function smoothly? Or will someone have to change the date format of their system everytime they want to access a different company's programs?

-- happy (notsure@y2k.com), January 05, 2000.