Solutions available for students to prevent future problems

By DARYL LANG
Collegian Staff Writer

Novice computer users don't need to understand the year 2000 problem to prevent it from crippling their systems.

There are easy steps for preparing and testing personal computers for next year, said Herman Knoble, research assistant for the Center for Academic Computing.

Older computers running Microsoft Windows 3.1 or DOS are likely to have the most severe problems, but computer users will only encounter minor bugs that won't disrupt usual tasks, Knoble said.

"The world's not going to come to an end," he said. "It's not going to give you the wrong answers for your applications."

But to prevent annoying glitches, many commercial programs have year 2000 update patches available for free on the Internet.

Knoble also recommends booting from a floppy disk and manually resetting the date the first time the computer is used in the new year.

Knoble has posted specific instructions for preparing personal computers at ftp.cac.psu.edu/pub/year2000/PSU-NSTL/pcy2k.htm.

This time next year, CAC and the Office of Administrative Systems (OAS) will be prepared to take phone calls from people having year 2000 trouble, said Kathy Plavko, senior office automation specialist for OAS.

Macintosh computer users can rest easy about the year 2000, Knoble said. According to Apple Computer's Web site, Macintosh computers can process dates well through the 300th century.

• Penn State computers prepare for Year 2000