He's been using a computer since he was 8, has always been good at puzzles, according to his mother, and now he's being held up by some as a whiz kid who solved the millennium bug. He's Nicholas Johnson from Christchurch, New Zealand, and he's 14 years old.
Working on a 486 PC -- or his 286 when someone else needs to use the family machine -- Johnson has written a utility that works around the computer's BIOS to take the operating system past 1999 without resetting itself to 1900 or 1980. It's written in Compile Basic, but Johnson said the fix could easily be translated to C++. Now the Johnsons are looking for a company to help Nicholas market the program.
Johnson stressed that his program isn't a "magic bullet" for the yeak 2000 problem, but he said it could be a first step on the path to an answer. "It's a hardware solution, not a software solution," he pointed out.
Andrew Siddall, a Christchurch computer analyst who has tested the program, said Johnson may have a winning formula. "We've tested it on a 486 with great success," Siddall said. Although it may not solve all computer year 2000 glitches, "we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that this is a great achievement for a 14-year-old schoolboy," he added.
Nicholas is the only one in his family with such a knack for computers, according to his mother, Elise Doyer. "He's pretty much on his own when it come to that," she said. "It's hard for him because he's so enthusiastic about computers and so keen to talk about what he's discovering, but it goes straight over our heads."
The yeak 2000 fix isn't the first program the New Zealand boy has cooked up. He said he specializes in small-scale utility programs, such as time management applications for children, but this is his first effort that made headlines. He said he hopes to become a full-time computer programmer someday.
His story has attracted media attention in New Zealand, as well as overseas, where it has also drawn some criticism. Karl Feilder, CEO of Greenwich Mean Time, a company that promotes year 2000 compliance, said, "I can state with authority that whatever this young chap has come up with cannot be a universal fix."
However, Johnson doesn't quibble with that statement, adding, "I'm worried about the way it's portrayed in the media myself."
