At the time of going to press there are less than 500 days to 31 December 1999, the deadline for Year 2000 compliance. Although awareness of the problem is high within the maritime industry, few companies will be prepared for all contingencies. The millennium 'bug' results from early computer programmers saving valuable memory space by storing only the last two digits of the year in any date-related data (1998 is stored as 98). It was never imagined that these original software systems would still be in operation over 30 years later. Therefore, software-driven systems may fail because the year (20)00 might be recognised as (19)00. The problem is compounded by the fact that the year 2000 is a leap year and 1900 was not, so even if 2000 is recognised, a date discontinuity will be experienced after 28th February 2000.
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