Angela Smith of Houston woke up on the first day of the new millennium, fired up her personal computer and discovered she'd gone back in time.
"I thought it was new enough that I would not have any Y2K bugs," said Smith in an interview conducted in an America Online chat room. "But when I turned on my computer, there it was: January 1980."
The 166-megahertz Pentium-based PC she was given last year by her son-in-law was purchased back in 1996 -- about a year before computer makers began guaranteeing their systems as year 2000-compliant.
Her son-in-law came to the rescue on New Year's Day, grabbing a fix off the Internet and installing it.
While the Y2K bug was more like a Y2K shrug for most governments and businesses, people like Smith -- individuals and owners of small and home businesses -- will face irritations and small problems as the weeks go on, experts say.
Federal officials monitoring the bug worldwide said they were "pleasantly surprised" at the scarcity of problems.
Those entities with the cash, personnel and know-how to fix the problem have fared well so far. But those who don't will begin using systems -- most likely personal computers -- over the next few days that have not been updated. Like Smith, they're likely to find annoying date glitches if they have not applied available patches and fixes.
Some small businesses, particularly those in the retail sector, may be immune simply because they are so low-tech to begin with.
At Stumbler's Pizza on Louetta Road in northwest Harris County, owner Ron Jester was able to brag that he was 100 percent Y2K-compliant -- only because he uses no computers at all. Even the electronic cash register on his counter is not an issue.
"We don't use it for receipts, just to store cash," he said. "I don't even know if it would print the date right on the receipts. We do all our orders by hand.
"Hey, even our TV set is a 1970 model."
A check of merchants and services around the area showed everything working as expected Saturday. Albert Garcia was withdrawing cash from an ATM at Willowbrook Mall.
"I got some money on Thursday, just in case the ATMs weren't working, but I've already spent it," he said. "I'm glad they're working!"
Monday -- the first full day of business around the world -- is expected to be the next big test for Y2K readiness. And problems may crop up for weeks or even months to come.
The Gartner Group, a market research firm, predicts that only 10 percent of Y2K computer failures will occur in the week after New Year's.
There were only a handful of glitches reported initially as the new year dawned Saturday. By afternoon, officials were reporting numerous incidents, all minor:
· A Y2K-related problem knocked out the Pentagon's ability to process data collected from some spy satellites. The military had a contingency plan in place and was able to begin processing reconnaissance information again after a few hours, although not at full capacity. "We are operating at less than our full peacetime level of activity today," Deputy Defense Secretary John J. Hamre said Saturday. "But all of our high-priority needs ... are fully being met."
· Another Y2K bug caused wind shear alert systems to fail at airports in Chicago, Atlanta, Denver, St. Louis, Orlando, Fla. and Tampa, Fla., the Transportation Department reported. Rebooting the computers cleared up the errors within two hours. Similar alert systems at four other airports displayed incorrect date readouts, but operations at those airports were not affected by the glitch.
· Weather data display systems at 16 different locations across the country failed about 10 minutes after the rollover, Transportation officials said. A contractor reloaded the software and service was restored in about 10 minutes.
· Seven nuclear power plants in six states experienced minor Y2K woes, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported. None of the problems affected the safety of the plants or caused power outages.
· Amtrak officials in Philadelphia discovered soon after the rollover that their computers could not keep track of the codes identifying individual trains as they rolled through the station. The symbols were inserted manually, and the system is now operating properly.
· A security system at a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms facility at an undisclosed location malfunctioned after the rollover. Agency officials were forced to post special guards. The bureau had recently installed what was thought to be a Y2K-compliant security system. Officials were checking Saturday to determine what caused the problem.
In Houston, the United States and around the world, the lights stayed on. Reliant Energy HL&P's computer command center kept a watch on the nation's power grid throughout the rollover. Spokesman Graham Painter said, "I haven't seen so much as a light bulb go out."
Southwestern Bell parent company SBC Communications saw no problems on the telephone network.
At the Transtar center in Houston, where government and industry leaders gathered to track the area's vital infrastructure, Mayor Lee Brown was "very pleased to say the city of Houston has no problems related to Y2K."
Ron Quiggins, director for Shell Services International in Houston and head of the American Petroleum Institute's Y2K task force, said the industry has had no reports of disruptions in oil and gas production around the world.
"It's been boring, but good," Quiggins said. "The next test will come Monday and Tuesday when oil company employees return to the office and begin trying to close out the financial books."
If the bug was such a nasty one, predicted to bring the world to the brink of cultural, economic and financial collapse, why was Jan. 1, 2000, such a non-event?
"Because the best, brightest and most talented minds in the world have been hired into this industry for the last 10 years, and that's who was working on this problem," said Dick Hudson, chief information officer at Global Marine, a Houston-based offshore drilling company.
The Y2K problem was caused by programmers who, trying to save precious memory in older computers, used just two digits for the year in dates. Those computers don't know how to interpret the change from 1999 to 2000.
In some cases, they may think it's 1900, 1980 or even 19100, which can garble calculations that depend on the date. Or, as in the case of the dispatch computers at the Houston Fire Department before they were fixed last month, the machines may simply quit working.
Just how much was spent trying to squash the Y2K bug is a matter of dispute.
Industry analysts such as the Gartner Group have estimated the cost to be as high as $600 billion. The U.S. Commerce Department pegged it at $100 billion.
Whatever the number, computer executives like Hudson say it obviously was money well-spent.
"Believe me -- you want this to be a non-event," he said.