Letter: Millennium bomb

Sir: Nicholas Lumsden (Letters, 23 September) is suffering from a common reaction to the year 2000 problem: denial. His suggestion that users should simply wind forward their computer clocks to 2001 is impractical, misses the scale of the problem but, most important, simply will not work. The difficulty is not in recognising the year 2000 per se but with computers understanding that the years "00", "01", etc, come after "99".

Even if his idea were feasible, it makes the basic assumption that this is a problem which affects only personal computers, and has a single solution. Unfortunately, as IT directors across the world are discovering, this is not the case.

Helena Sturridge

Editor, Computer Weekly