America preparing to be bitten by the bug

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Monday, August 24, 1998

By CHRIS ALLBRITTON

The Associated Press

NEW YORK -- The question of whether the Year 2000 glitch will affect personal computers at home or in the office can be answered with a frustrating "maybe."

Desktop computers and laptops built after 1997 and used for simple tasks such as word processing will probably have no problems when the century rolls over. But older PCs, or those running very complex applications, could be bitten by the millennium bug.

Every computer has a built-in clock chip that ticks once per second, or in some cases 60 times per second. A part of the computer called the BIOS (for Basic Input-Output System) accesses or updates the clock and is used whenever the operating system or other applications need a date calculation.

Problems arise when the millennium rolls around. Depending on the make and model of the PC, the machine will think it's Jan. 1, 2000, which is right -- or Jan. 1, 1900, which isn't.

Your checkbook program could be thrown out of whack, with checks written after Jan. 1, 2000, treated as if they were 100 years old. Computers also keep track of the date that files are created. If the date is off, the computer might erase the newest files when it goes through a hard-drive maintenance because it thinks the files haven't been opened in a century.

It should be noted that this is a problem primarily for people running a version of Microsoft Windows on a machine using Intel-style chips. Apple Macintosh computers, as their users often smugly note, never had a problem computing dates past the millennium. However, this doesn't mean every application for the Mac will continue to function properly.

Don't expect the latest versions of Windows 95 and Windows 98 running on a Pentium II chip to have problems. But don't be surprised if that 386-based computer you bought in 1992 that still runs Windows 3.1 or MS-DOS doesn't compute dates properly.

How do you know if the machine that holds your checkbook is going to keep calculating dates correctly? Set the computer clock to Dec. 31, 1999, 11:59 p.m. Then wait. If the clock seems to roll over correctly and everything seems to work fine, your BIOS is probably OK.

Now shut off the computer and wait a few minutes. Turn it back on. Is the date still a few minutes after midnight, Jan. 1, 2000? Good. Your clock chip is fine, too.

But if you're unlucky enough to find this is not the case, take cold comfort in the knowledge that you're not alone.

Karl Fielder, whose company Greenwich Mean Time specializes in Year 2000 work, tested 500 computer models and brands and found that some worked fine with the date change and some didn't. Even when two BIOSes seemed identical, the test results sometimes varied.

Fielder also found that 93 percent of BIOSes installed in machines made before 1997 failed. For machines manufactured in 1997, 47 percent failed. Most machines shipped this year will be fine.

Never fear. Most BIOSes can be replaced for free by contacting the computer manufacturer. If the clock chip has to be replaced, it's usually a pretty simple procedure costing under $20. However, you may run into problems if your machine is so old -- say, 1983 or so -- that the manufacturer doesn't stock parts for it anymore.

Also check applications that use dates, such as checkbook programs, calendars, or spreadsheet programs. If they choke on a post-2000 date, it's time to upgrade to a newer version or another program that can handle the millennium. This might be inconvenient but hardly a major hassle if you start testing your home or office machine now.