Shock of century for video hirer

By Michael Foreman

A customer returning a tape to an Onehunga video shop became an innocent victim of the Y2K bug when he was told it was 94 years overdue.

Eden Ottignon, assistant manager at Hollywood Connection in Mt Smart Rd, blamed an ageing computer that since the start of the year has been convinced it is 2094.

Mr Ottignon realised something was wrong when a man returned a video after the New Year break.

"He said the video might be a bit overdue, but we both got a bit of a shock when the computer said it was 34,333 days late."

The video was only $2 a night but the computer reckoned the customer owed $68,666 in rental charges.

"It would have been great to charge him, but we couldn't really," Mr Ottignon said.

He is able to beat the bug by resetting the computer, made by Onehunga-based TL Systems, to the correct date each morning. The computer has been trouble-free until now and he would like to fix the problem permanently.

The general manager of TL Systems, Steve Price, said the PC was made in 1995 and the model was listed on the company's Website as "possibly non-Y2K-compliant."

"The best fix would be to a buy a new computer," he said, adding that TL Systems would be happy to supply an add-in card, which would provide the correct date.

The fault in the Hollywood Connections computer could point to Y2K trouble for many other PC users. The component at fault is the bios, a piece of software that handles vital computer functions, including dates.

In this case, a bios made by a company called Award was widely used by computer makers as late as 1997.