British Columbia prisons turn back time to beat Y2K

                        December 31, 1999 
                        Web posted at: 5:58 PM EST (2258 GMT) 

                        VANCOUVER (Reuters) -- Prison officials in the Canadian province of British Columbia
                        went back in time to an old year to bring in the New Year -- they reset their computers to
                        1994 to save costly Year 2000 technical adjustments. 

                        Sheldon Green, spokesman for B.C. Corrections, said Friday computers that control cell
                        locks and cameras at five prisons in the province were not Y2K compliant, so their clocks
                        were reset to prevent them rolling into the new year. 

                        The year 1994 has the same day-date sequence as 2000 for the month of January. 

                        "It is an elegant and cheap (solution)...and we really like the cheap part," Green said. 

                        The so-called Y2K bug could prevent some computers distinguishing 2000 from 1900
                        because of programming shortcuts that recorded the year with two digits only. Unless
                        fixed, this could disrupt computer systems used by airlines, health-care facilities and even
                        telephones. 

                        The prison clocks will have to be reset again at the end of February because unlike 2000,
                        1994 was not a leap year. The plan now calls for moving them ahead February 28 to make
                        them "think" they have entered February 29, 1996, a leap year. "It buys us five years to
                        come up with a solution," Green said, adding that the department is upgrading its
                        equipment and the five facilities are scheduled to receive new computers within the next
                        few years. 

                        Authorities are not worried about inmates escaping if their plan fails, because the system
                        is designed to automatically lock cells in the event of a computer breakdown. They can also
                        lock the doors manually. 

                           Copyright 1999 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.