Worldwide, an estimated 13,000 ticketing terminals will have to be replaced. Boeing recently advised the industry that all of its jets will have to be fixed to deal with the millennium bug. Between 50 and 75 per cent of Air Canada's computers will be replaced before the year 2000. Canadian Airlines said most of its computers will need to be fixed, not replaced. In a separate presentation, Ottawa Hydro also admitted that it could not give any sweeping assurances that service would not be interrupted.
Electricity systems are part of a huge interconnected grid, which extends into the United States.
The millennium bug originated in the 1960s and '70s when programmers used a two digit code to represent a year in computer systems. Hence, the code 00 will be read as 1900 instead of 2000, posing a potential disaster for companies who do not fix the problem.