By CHRIS ONSTOTT
There is a monster among us. It could be anywhere: in our cars, in our appliances, even in our telephones. The monster is actually a bug, a computer bug that will seriously affect many computers when the date flips over to the year 2000. However, some close to computing at BYU student accounts say they are ready for the challenge.
The glitch was created in the ’70s and ’80s when programmers weary of using precious memory added only two spaces for the date, leaving off the century. This glitch could result in error messages and program crashes if not accounted for because calculations made using the date will recognize “00” as “1900” instead of “2000”.
One reason BYU Financial Computer support stays so calm about the year 2000 bug is they showed uncommon foresight in developing the software that controls most
financial services for BYU.
“We’ve engineered all of our homegrown systems, such as payroll and student accounts, to be able to handle the year 2000,” said Brent Moore, a computer specialist for BYU Financial Computer Support. “The standard for the last 10
years is anytime you implement a computer system you add the century to it.”
Although most BYU financial computing systems are already year 2000 compliant, the university continues to work on some systems that still contain the glitch.
“There are still some issues that we are taking a look at to make sure of , but we are OK for the most part to handle the year 2000 bug,” Moore said. “We are in the process of upgrading the general ledger [for BYU] and it should be year 2000 compliant.”
Surprisingly, the way the year 2000 bug may threaten the operation of student accounts and other financial systems most, may come from outside sources, such as banking and telephone services, Moore said. However, even this would not affect the services of student accounts as much as it would individual students and their off-campus banking and communication needs.
BYU takes no chances with student financial information. They back up important information through University Computing Services, but the bug isn’t even enough
of a threat to BYU financial information to be the primary reason for the backup.
“We follow a standard backup practice,” Moore said. “We would be more worried about a fire in the computer room than a year 2000 problem.”
Although the bug may not be a huge problem for BYU financial services, the problem will affect many lives in the year 2000.
“”The year 2000 is a big problem. There are companies spending billions of dollars on this,” Moore said. “If you haven’t handled it you could go out of business.”
