IP: 9/9/99 -- a bunch of stories

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> From: Mary Shaw <mary.shaw () cs cmu edu>
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
>
>
> Excite headlines this morning include
>
> North American Power Grid Passes '9/9/99' Test
> http://news.excite.com/news/r/990909/04/news-yk-electricity
>
> Asia Escapes 'Four 9s' Computer Bug
> http://news.excite.com/news/r/990909/03/tech-yk-asia
>
> But I never put much stock in this anyhow, because the conversion of 9/9/99
> to internal forms used for computation so rarely yield a string of
> (internal) nines.
>
> More worrisome ...
>
> Russia Said Skipping Y2k Step On Key Systems
> http://news.excite.com/news/r/990909/03/tech-russia-usa
>
> Mary

From: John Locke-Wheaton <john.locke-wheaton () bigfoot com>
To: "'farber () cis upenn edu'" <farber () cis upenn edu>
Subject: 9/9/99 in the UK
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1999 14:56:21 +0100

*Warehouses on bug alert today*

An article in today's Independent newspaper in the UK
(http://www.independent.co.uk/) quotes people entering orders without a
delivery date as 9/9/99 - so there could be a outbreak of unexpected
deliveries today. Not an overwhelming disaster.

The article notes that the only instance of a real problem in the UK - a
rail track vibration monitoring system - was identified and fixed 2 years
ago. A rail track vibration monitoring system? If something like that can
be affected, then what else? Maybe the hype was not totally without
foundation.

We wait with an air of amusement ... so far.

John Locke-Wheaton
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1999 09:37:38 -0400
To: farber () cis upenn edu
From: Keith Dawson <dawson () world std com>
Subject: More on Re: IP: 9/9/99 bug?

Other stories:

Experts: 9/9/99 issue is no Y2K
http://www.msnbc.com/news/309339.asp

Dressed to the 9-9-99s
http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/21637.html

9/9/99: dry-run day of reckoning
http://www.sjmercury.com/svtech/news/indepth/docs/spook090999.htm

It's Not Y2K, But 9/9/99 May Hit PCs
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999 
/09/08/BU25634.DTL&type=tech_article


It was a total non-event. Pieces ran yesterday reporting that Japan
and Australia had skated through with no problems. The tone of some
of the coverage is "Yeh, we knew the nines problem wasn't a biggie,"
which sounds suspiciously like 20-20 hindsight.

We'll probably all do the same thing after 12/31/99 -- convniently
forget that no-one actually knew how bad it was going to be.

_____________________________________________________
Keith Dawson  dawson () world std com  http://dawson.nu/
Layer of ash separates morning and evening milk.