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Thread ID: 23136	2002-08-08 07:11:00	Y2K	Baldy (26)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
69364	2002-08-08 09:16:00	Bugger robsonde you got my hopes up, I started changing my future career path. :D	Sam H (525)
69365	2002-08-08 09:16:00	It came early for a large aluminium smelter.... A computer glitch at the Tiwai Pt aluminium smelter at midnight on New Year's Eve has left a repair bill of more than $1 million. Production in all the smelting potlines ground to a halt at the stroke of midnight when the computers shut down simultaneously and without warning. New Zealand Aluminium Smelters' general manager David Brewer said the failure was traced to a faulty computer software program, which failed to account for 1996 being a leap year. The computer was not programmed to handle the 366th day of the year, he said. "Each of the 660 process control computers hung up simultaneously at midnight," Mr. Brewer said. The same problem occurred two hours later at Comalco's Bell Bay smelter, in Tasmania. New Zealand is two hours ahead of Tasmania. Both smelters use the same program, which was written by Comalco computer staff. Mr. Brewer said the cause was difficult to trace and it was not till a telephone call in the morning from Bell Bay that the leap year link was made. "It was a complicated problem and it took quite some time to find out just what caused it." Tiwai staff rallied through the night to operate the potlines manually and try to find the cause. The glitch was fixed and normal production restored by mid-afternoon. However, by then, the damage has been done. Without the computers to regulate temperatures inside the pot cells, five cells over-heated and were damaged beyond repair. Mr. Brewer said they would have to be replaced at a cost of more than $1 million.	godfather (25)
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