Gremlins get to work while world parties

While most of the world's essential services came through the millennium dawn unscathed, the Y2K bug has made its presence felt.

Telling time

On a night of memorable millennium firsts, Auckland Airport took the dubious honour of being the first in the world to issue a press statement several centuries out of date.

A statement on its web site at 2.58 am declaring, "Auckland Airport Confirms Business as Usual" carried the dateline, 1 Jan, 100.

But the airport was not alone. The Swissinfo World time (www.swissinfo.net) site jumped 17 millenniums after midnight to Jan 1, 19100.

While many of web site mistakes have been corrected, collections of errors as they occurred can be found at http://go.to/y2kmistakes and www.x5ca.net/\D1drane/y2k.

Travel troubles

Three toll roads in Sao Paulo, Brazil, issued receipts with invalid dates as clocks struck midnight.

Portable ticket validation machines on buses and trams in Adelaide did not recognise the date on the 1st.

Hackers broke into the British Railtrack web site and posted a message saying no trains would run due to Y2K.

A bit sick

Two hospitals in Sweden reported glitches which shut down equipment used to interpret data from electrocardiograms, but patients were not in danger.

The Miami Children's Hospital in the United States noted its dialysis machine printout was dated 1 January, 1900.

Nuked

Seven US commercial nuclear reactors experienced minor Y2K bug problems at New Year, but none affected safety systems and they were quickly fixed.

The radiation monitoring system malfunctioned at Japan's Shiga nuclear power plant causing the non-display of data, but was repaired.

Spooked

Operations of a US spy satellite were spooked for some hours by the Y2K bug which stopped intelligence gathering until a ground backup system kicked in.

Stuck in time

American bank Wells Fargo mailed certificate of deposit renewal notices dated Jan 1, 1900.

Letters from a power utility in Jacksonville, Louisiana, threatened customers with ultimatums stating their bills should have been paid by January 3, 1900.

New York stock exchanges had instances of trade reports dated 1900 instead of 2000, as well as a decimal point problem changing net asset valuations such as $35 showing as $3500.

In South Korea, a district court issued summonses to 170 people asking them to appear in court on January 4, 1900.

Locked out

National Defence HQ in Ottawa had glitches in security access keypad systems. The problem, uncovered in routine checks, will take two to three months to fix. Meanwhile, people will be checked by ID pass.

The US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms' security system - replaced to be Y2K ready - failed. The backup plan saw guards posted.

Going forward

Microsoft's MoneyCentral web site overestimated the value of some customer portfolios on New Year's Eve. Microsoft Hotmail users with messages dated before October 1999 appear to have been sent them in 2099.

Soft budget

Software used for budget calculations at five local government offices in Gifu prefecture, central Japan, malfunctioned. The software in question was all made in 1991.

Weather or not

Japan's Science and Technology Agency's high-sensitivity earthquake detector in Osaka failed to collect information from 38 sites after systems entered the year 2000. In France some weather service systems displayed 100 instead of 00.

All bets off

Eight hundred slot machines shut down at a horse track in the State of Delaware.