Some administrative equipment stores, displays or prints the year as a two-digit date (99 for example). If this is the case, the equipment may display the date January 1, 2000, as January 1, 1900. This may be irrelevant, an annoyance, or (rarely) a more serious problem.

Testing administrative equipment for Y2K compliance
Most administrative equipment can be tested simply by moving the date ahead, today, to beyond January 1, 2000, and checking its behavior.

Administrative equipment that is not Y2K compliant?
The following types of equipment may have a problem, depending on the manufacturer and model: By "may", we mean that at least one case is known where a manufacturer has acknowledged that one of more of their models is not Y2K compliant.

• Cash registers
  
• Facsimile machines (fax machines)
  
• Postage meters
  
• Printers
  
• Photocopiers
  
• Telephone equipment
  
• Time clocks and date stampers
  
• Ticket (and receipt) dispensing machines
  
• VCRs and camcorders

Administrative equipment not on this list
Types of administrative equipment that are not on the above list are either not known to have Y2K problems or are an oversight on our part. If we become aware of problems with other types of administrative equipment, we will update this page with new information. If you are concerned about specific administrative equipment that you think should be on the above list, please click here.

What departments should do
We recommend the following six-step process for addressing Y2K problems with administrative equipment in departments:

• Step 1: To make sure that a comprehensive survey is being done, obtain an equipment inventory listing from the Berkeley Equipment Tracking System (BETS).

  Departments with on-line access to BETS may produce the BET770 report of equipment under their custody. The report is sorted by category (unless an EQ code or some other limiter is specified by the department as part of the report request), manufacturer, and model. Instructions for producing this report are in the BETS training manual.

  Departments who do not have access to BETS may send email to mlaverty@uclink4.berkeley.edu, requesting a listing. . The email request should include the department custody code, contact person, and fax number. Equipment Management will then provide a list of administrative equipment under the department's custody.

• Step 2: Compare administrative equipment in the department to the categories of administrative equipment with known problems, above.

• Step 3: Where detailed information provided on this web site, for a category, indicates that some administrative equipment in the department may have a problem, follow the provided link (URL) to the manufacturer's web site for further information. (Or follow directions on this web site as to what should be done instead, such as contacting a campus department, if such alternative directions are given.)

• Step 4: Record any identified problems with administrative equipment on a spreadsheet or other document.

• Step 5: Based on information from the manufacturer, (a) make fixes to the equipment; or (b) make a determination that the department will live with display and/or other problems, because no fix is available or is more expensive than its value; or (c) replace the equipment. Record the fixes, or the decision to live with or replace the equipment, on the problem-tracking spreadsheet/document.

• Step 6: Check this page at least once every two months to see if any new categories have been added.

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