SINGAPORE--The National Computer Board (NCB) said Singapore it is ready for September 9, the third in a series of five critical dates spanning 1999 and 2000 when computer failures may occur.
Said Wu Choy Peng, director of government systems division of the NCB: "We believe it would have been detected and rectified by [key government agencies] during their systems conversion efforts.
NCB expects no major issues from September 9 since both April 9 and August 22 failure dates have passed without a stir. Wu also said the key government agencies will continue their testing and develop contingency plans for a smooth transition into the new millenium.
"All key government systems as well as the infrastructure systems and service providers in the areas of finance, telecommunications, transportation, utilities and healthcare have been Y2K ready since mid-1999," she said.
The 9 September 1999 issue is a programming glitch rather than a Y2K problem, said an NCB statement. A common programming practice mainly in the COBOL language, "9999" is often denoted as infinity or end of process. When detected, it can cause computer programs to stop.
The Y2K problem, also known as the millennium bug, stems from an old programming shortcut that used only the last two digits of the year. Many computers now must be modified, or they may mistake the year 2000 for the year 1900 and may not be able to function at all.
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