Y2K alert ... again? Beware 'leap day'

'A real issue we feel obligated to keep track of,' warns Clinton's Year 2000 technology whiz, as the U.S. and others gear up for possible Feb. 29 digital snafus.

By Reuters February 24, 2000 4:13 PM PT

The United States and about a dozen countries will work together to track any automated-system failures sparked by a leap day next week that occurs only once in 400 years, the U.S. government said Thursday. "It's a real issue that we feel obligated to keep track of," John Koskinen, President Clinton's chief aide for Year 2000 technology problems, told reporters at a $50 million Y2K monitoring station. Koskinen said he did not expect any major system failures, largely because organizations typically checked for leap-year compliance while troubleshooting for the so-called Y2K bug. "If there are difficulties in many cases it will result in minor or modest glitches that can be remedied quickly if people catch it quickly," he said. To keep tabs internationally, Koskinen will take part in scheduled conference calls every eight hours over a three-day period with national Y2K coordinators on the steering committee of the World Bank-funded International Y2K Cooperation Center. This group includes Britain, Bulgaria, Chile, Gambia, Iceland, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands and South Korea. Australia and New Zealand have also been invited to take part because they can give early warning shortly after Feb. 29 dawns at the international date line. Info center finds new purpose The $50 million information coordination center set up under White House auspices to track Y2K glitches will be operational from Feb. 28 to March 1. It will be staffed from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. by about 75 federal workers per shift, about half as many as for the century date change, when it ran around the clock. The greatest leap-day risk is to custom software used for record keeping or billing, especially where the number of days is central to the process being carried out, such as computing interest, Koskinen said. Unlike the Y2K issue -- where the use of only two digits to signify the year was standard practice (see ZDNet News' Y2K Special Report) -- the potential leap-year problem results from misunderstanding the rule for when an extra day is added to the calendar. The three-step rule Under the little-known three-step rule, February picks up a 29th day in years divisible by 4 except when the year is divisible by 100 -- unless the year is divisible by 400. Thus, the year 2000 is the first leap year of its kind since 1600. The three-step rule was crafted for the calendar introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 to better synchronize with the cycle of the seasons. The years 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not leap years. Koskinen said previous testing found that some software programmers knew enough of the leap-year rule to get to its second step. That would mean they could have coded 2000 as a normal year, in which February had 28 days, instead of the 29 required. Koskinen, who chairs the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion, said he would brief journalists on any glitches at 2 p.m. Feb. 29 and March 1. At the final briefing, he said he would announce White House plans for the future of the state-of-the-art computer systems built for the rollover watch post.

http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2448220,00.html

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 27, 2000

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Y2K alert ... again? Beware 'leap day'

'A real issue we feel obligated to keep track of,' warns Clinton's Year 2000 technology whiz, as the U.S. and others gear up for possible Feb. 29 digital snafus.

By Reuters

February 24, 2000 4:13 PM PT

The United States and about a dozen countries will work together to track any automated-system failures sparked by a leap day next week that occurs only once in 400 years, the U.S. government said Thursday.

"It's a real issue that we feel obligated to keep track of," John Koskinen, President Clinton's chief aide for Year 2000 technology problems, told reporters at a $50 million Y2K monitoring station.

Koskinen said he did not expect any major system failures, largely because organizations typically checked for leap-year compliance while troubleshooting for the so-called Y2K bug.

"If there are difficulties in many cases it will result in minor or modest glitches that can be remedied quickly if people catch it quickly," he said.

To keep tabs internationally, Koskinen will take part in scheduled conference calls every eight hours over a three-day period with national Y2K coordinators on the steering committee of the World Bank- funded International Y2K Cooperation Center.

This group includes Britain, Bulgaria, Chile, Gambia, Iceland, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands and South Korea. Australia and New Zealand have also been invited to take part because they can give early warning shortly after Feb. 29 dawns at the international date line.

Info center finds new purpose

The $50 million information coordination center set up under White House auspices to track Y2K glitches will be operational from Feb. 28 to March 1. It will be staffed from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. by about 75 federal workers per shift, about half as many as for the century date change, when it ran around the clock. The greatest leap-day risk is to custom software used for record keeping or billing, especially where the number of days is central to the process being carried out, such as computing interest, Koskinen said. Unlike the Y2K issue -- where the use of only two digits to signify the year was standard practice (see ZDNet News' Y2K Special Report) -- the potential leap-year problem results from misunderstanding the rule for when an extra day is added to the calendar.

The three-step rule

Under the little-known three-step rule, February picks up a 29th day in years divisible by 4 except when the year is divisible by 100 -- unless the year is divisible by 400.

Thus, the year 2000 is the first leap year of its kind since 1600. The three-step rule was crafted for the calendar introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 to better synchronize with the cycle of the seasons.

The years 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not leap years.

Koskinen said previous testing found that some software programmers knew enough of the leap-year rule to get to its second step. That would mean they could have coded 2000 as a normal year, in which February had 28 days, instead of the 29 required.

Koskinen, who chairs the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion, said he would brief journalists on any glitches at 2 p.m. Feb. 29 and March 1.

At the final briefing, he said he would announce White House plans for the future of the state-of-the-art computer systems built for the rollover watch post.

http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2448220,00.html

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 27, 2000.

DID YOU CATCH THAT LAST LINE???!!! his highness is going to tell us what will be the fate of the hardware in the center???!!!! hmmmmmmm.......let me guess. so why didn't he say, "and we will also tell you what we will be doing with John Koskinen as well"?

-- tt (cuddluppy@aol.com), February 27, 2000.