Re: The Y2K glitches start being reported

["Neil J. McRae" <neil () genesis domino org>]

I've seen this personally, I've also see a POS machine crash hard
around a year ago when my renewed VISA card with a 00 expiry date
was swiped.

> And it begins, the early reports from England on a particular POS machine.
> Although this glitch was related to Y2K, POS machines are flaky on the best
> of days.
>
> > There have been some problems with a small percentage (5%) of point of sale
> > terminals (the card readers in shops that are used to process credit and debit
> > card transactions). The affected terminals show an error message which simply
> > needs to be cleared to allow the transaction to be processed. Although there
> > is a simple workaround, details were not immediately available to all affected
> > retailers, so consumers were inconvenienced yesterday. Now that the details
> > have been widely disseminated, consumers are much less likely to be affected. 
> >
> > The problem is restricted to some of the machines produced by Racal Electronics
> > plc. Although the fault relates to the Y2K bug, it will disappear on 1.1.2000.
> >
> > This is only a minor glitch. It is typical of the sort of problem that it was >expected would need to be dealt with 
> > over this period. This problem does not >affect any other point of sale terminals, ATMs, the cards themselves or 
> > other >methods of payment, and does not lead us to expect any significant problems in >the financial sector. 


-- 
Neil J. McRae - Alive and Kicking.
neil () DOMINO ORG