Agencies report smooth sailing in Y2K transition

As the clock ticked over to Jan. 1, 2000, federal agencies reported no major Y2K-related glitches in their computer systems.

As scores of federal employees heralded the new year in front of computer monitors, the government's Y2K czar, John Koskinen, said few problems in any computer systems had emerged.

"We literally have not been able to find any significant Y2K-related incident as the world has gone into the year 2000," Koskinen said at a 2 a.m. news briefing.

Several non-federal systems experienced minor problems. The state of Delaware reported that some slot machines at racetracks stopped functioning temporarily. Eight electric utilities in the U.S. reported that clocks used to synchronize the utilities' time with Greenwich Mean Time malfunctioned. Both problems were corrected within a few hours.

On the federal side, the U.S. Naval Observatory, which runs the master clock that keeps the country's official time, had a Y2K glitch on its Web site, the Associated Press reported. Due to a programming problem, the site reported that the date was Jan. 1, "19100." (GovExec.com experienced the same difficulty.)

The Associated Press also reported that a Pentagon official said a military intelligence system went down briefly due to a Y2K problem, but was brought back on-line with a temporary fix.

Otherwise, the Pentagon and other federal agencies reported a smooth transition into 2000.

Koskinen, as well as Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater and Federal Aviation Administration chief Jane Garvey, were aloft in airplanes as midnight arrived at Greenwich Mean Time, the time used by the worldwide air traffic control system. None of their planes experienced any problems.

From his plane, Koskinen said the President and the Vice President asked him to pass on their thanks "to all of those working tonight in the federal government and emergency operation centers here and around the country, monitoring our systems to ensure that they work effectively and that we are prepared to respond to any issue and situation that can develop."

Koskinen cautioned that agencies will continue to monitor their systems for Y2K problems.

"I would stress that Monday will be an important day when everyone opens for business and we test systems under true operating conditions on the software and information processing side," he said. "The problem for information processing is likely to run through certainly the next week as we test systems."