By Michelle Han
As the clock ticks down to the millennium celebration and the prospect of a year 2000 computer bug inches nearer, officials and service providers in Queens say they have prepared all their computer systems and do not expect any major problems.
Still, there will be more police, telephone and utility workers and hospital staff on duty than at any other time of the year to assist residents through even the perception that there is a year 2000 problem.
The year 2000 computer bug is the anticipated problem computers will have reading the date, 2000. In their earliest forms computers were wired to read only the last two digits of a year so that the year 2000 would read as 1900. The problem was never addressed until just a few years ago, with the impending turn of the millennium drawing closer.
There is widespread fear that when the clock strikes midnight on Dec. 31, 1999, computer systems will fail, creating mayhem in hospitals, airports, banks, and possibly crippling the city
