http://www.russiatoday.com/frames/frames.php3?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nandotimes.com%2Ftechnology%2Fstory%2Fbody%2F0%2C1634%2C500039736-500064466-500094377-0%2C00.html


-- spider (spider0@usa.net), October 04, 1999

Answers

MOSCOW (September 30, 1999 9:49 a.m. EDT)
- Russia's gas monopoly Gazprom said Thursday that 9,000 of its 28,000 computers were unprepared for the Year 2000 computer bug.

Gazprom plans to replace 3,300 of the 9,000 computers by October and to modify others that might cause problems in the new year, Gazprom said in a statement.

"Analysis shows that reliable gas supply to our partners in 2000 will be secured," the statement said.

As many as 30 percent of Russia's power stations are gas-fired, all of them dependent on Gazprom, according to economist Denis Rodinov at the Moscow brokerage Brunswick Warburg.

Gazprom is the world's largest natural gas producer, and the largest gas supplier to western Europe.

The so-called Y2K bug could affect computers that are programmed to read only the last two digits of a date. When the year changes to 2000, computers may read it as 1900 and possibly malfunction or shut down.

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), October 04, 1999.