Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Year 2000 May Affect Busineses

Businesses in Nevada County need to take a hard look at their computer systems if they want to keep the year 2000 bug from disrupting their operations.

"The year 2000 bug can affect us all," says Candace Carri, County Extension agent staff chairman of the Nevada County Cooperative Extension Service.

"Many computers will have problems," she says. "Even if their own computers are okay, a lot of our farms and businesses depend on suppliers or services that might have problems. That can be disruptive and expensive."

The problem arose when computer programmers and system managers tried to save valuable computer memory and money by representing the date with only two digits instead of four. The problem is that when January 1, 2000, arrives, computers will see it as '00.' Some computers might see that as 1900 instead of 2000. The glitch could cause them to generate false data or stop running.

"We're asking our communities to take a good look to be sure they're Y2K okay," Carri says.

For more information about the Y2K bug, contact the Extension office at 887-2818. "We have some fact sheets and can point the way to other resources," Carrie says.

There are several Y2K Internet sites on the World Wide Web, including the Department of Agriculture's Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service www.reusda.gov/y2k and the Small Business Administration, www.sba.gov/y2k/.