Just a few short notes from a small country...with "small" meaning that our
population (and GNP) is about 1/1000th that of the US, so if you want to scale
things to US size, multiply the relevant numbers by 1000.

* The electric utility (yes, there is only one in the country) just reported
  their status.  According to them, they have now rewritten (in the case of
  software) or replaced (in the case of everything else, including embedded
  chips) everything non-Y2K compliant.  The total number of programs and
  devices that had to be rewritten/replaced (sorry, I do not have separate
  numbers) was somewhere around 1500.

  Total cost: around $500.000, with $350.000 for software rewrites and
  $150.000 for replaced chips and such.

  They admit that they may have missed something, so they have been running
  tests, controlling the grid without the use of computers, in effect going
  back to pre-1975 status.  Those tests have been successful - however, they
  admit there is a catch - this relies on telecommunications working.
  If the phone system crashes, they say, the loss of communication with the
  powerplants could mean serious difficulties in keeping the system running.

* The phone company recently finished a software update, and according to
  them, the system would have gone down for an unspecified amount of time on
  1/1/2000.  With the upgrade they are promising that everything will work
  just fine.  Given their track record (recent serious problems in keeping 
  the GSM system running smoothly), most people expect them to have some 
  problems.

* The banking system and the credit card companies have claimed full
  compliance for over a year.  Much of their software is the same - the banks
  all share a single computer center (Reiknistofa bankanna), which means that
  a large number of potential problems had to be just checked there - there
  were some minor problems there, as well in the locally written software
  used by individual banks, but nobody really expects a major problem here.

* There are only a few large industrial plants in the country - only around
  5 of a significant size.  While they all say they are Y2K compliant, they
  are all big users of "surplus" electricity, so if there are any electricity
  problems, they will suffer first.

* Some government organization have not turned in Y2K compliance reports, or
  their reports indicate that there is no way they will be ready in time.
  In most cases the effects are expected to be relatively minor - there is
  only one major concern, which is the local equivalent of the s

* Non-compliance of locally written software: Most major local software
  companies (including us) have either declared their software to be fully
  Y2K compliant to begin with or have released updates.  A few have admitted
  non-compliance, and are not providing updates, either because the software
  is too old and not supported any more or because the problem is a minor
  one...case in point - a video-rental management program that will not
  generate a correct list after 1/1/2000 of videos that were rented before
  that date and not returned in time.  

* Finally, we have about the same percentage of non-Y2K complieant PCs as
  everybody else, and as we run the same Microsoft/Lotus/etc.. programs as
  others we have a known set of problems there.
-- 
Fridrik Skulason      Frisk Software International     phone: +354-5-617273
Author of F-PROT      E-mail: frisk@complex.is         fax:   +354-5-617274