Barton was in Abilene, Monday, to give a Year 2000 presentation at the Civic Center to nearly 100 Abilenians. The presentation, sponsored by First National Bank of Abilene, was to ensure local businessmen and residents were aware of the Millennium Bug and that there is still time to fix it. Only now, people have one year less to fix the less widely-known problem. Fortunately, the problem is less common than the Millennium Bug, Barton said. Y2K, however, is not strictly limited to large, dated corporate and government mainframes.
Smaller firms are vulnerable, too, as well as some personal computing applications.
Barton said 48 percent of computers manufactured as recently as one year ago failed Year 2000 tests. Microsoft originally said it was. Microsoft's Web site, Barton said, indexes which programs might have problems. The best way to find out, though, is to check them out yourself, Barton said. Barton suggested entering your own sample dates into your applications.