This year's expo will feature a special section dedicated to problems - and solutions - associated with the millennium bug that threatens to wreak havoc on computer systems around the world as the 21st century dawns. A simple computer problem, the millennium bug will effect almost all computers world-wide, up to and beyond midnight on December 31, 1999. The basic principle of the millennium bug is the inability of computer systems to recognise the existence of a new century, in particular the 21st century, which is rapidly approaching. Put simply, most computer systems will recognise January 1, 2000, as 01/01/00, which to them is January 1, 1900. The impact of the millennium bug is that it may infect each and every part of your computer systems that rely on valid dates to initiate, action, record, report, calculate or facilitate a business operation. Quite possibly, your client database, account records and financial systems may be corrupted or produce erroneous information. The Date 2000 problem can be expressed fairly easily. We all tend to write dates with two digit years - such as 96 for 1996. In some countries, dates are expressed as day/month/year, such as 20/12/96. In other countries, the method is month/day/year, such as 12/20/96. In yet other counties, it is year/month/day, such as 96/12/20. In computers, dates have traditionally been stored as YY-MM-DD, for example 96/12/20. This enabled dates to be compared to decide which was the earlier (lower value). In the 60s and 70s, computer storage was expensive and the year 2000 was a long way away so only two digits were used for the year instead of four digits. This usage became accepted and, even now, some people are still doing it. The situation now exists where a computer will determine that, for example; February 15, 2000 (000215) is an earlier date than July 23, 1998 (980723). The effect of this is that computers, in the year 2000 and beyond, will calculate people's ages incorrectly, interest payments will be calculated wrongly, airline scheduling will be affected and accounting systems will report erroneous results. The list obviously does not stop there. Any computer function that uses a date to calculate, initiate, action, report, facilitate, schedule or record will be affected. It is generally considered that the millennium bug is a computer problem, as it is the computer systems that are directly affected. However, computer systems are simply tools that industry and commerce use to operate their businesses. In fact, they are tools that businesses rely on to conduct commercial operations. Various studies have been reported and while the accuracy of their statements on the size of the problem may be debatable, they can be used to give an indication of the magnitude of the problem. The Gartner Group has sized the problem at US$400 to US$600 billion worldwide. The US government share of this is quoted as being US$30 billion. In MIS magazine of March 1996, the New York Stock Exchange Date 2000 project alone was estimated to cost about US$30 million. It started in 1987 and has yet to finish the project. COUNTDOWN TO CHAOS Year 2000 peril looms for programs relying on dates Experts still studying extent and impact of the bug Problem estimated to cost at least US$400m