Millennium bug hits US supermarkets

A Y2K-type computer bug hit cash registers in 7-Eleven stores in the US, causing them to read the New Year as 1901 instead of 2001.

It inconvenienced customers who wanted to make credit-card purchases.

A spokeswoman said the problem was fixed late Tuesday night and most stores were operating normally by Wednesday.

Officials at the Dallas-based chain of about 5,200 convenience stores and thousands more around the world thought they had nipped computer glitches a year ago when they geared up for an onslaught of Y2K bugs that never came.

7-Eleven said it spent $8.8 million preparing its in-store computer systems for the rollover from 1999 to 2000.

Company spokeswoman Margaret Chabris said: "This was all specifically devised for 7-Eleven and was all Y2K-compliant.

"We did some 10,000 tests on it, and it was working fine until Monday."

Ms Chabris said about 15% of 7-Eleven's sales involve credit cards - not including credit-card ports on the outside gas pumps, which she said were not disrupted.

Ms Chabris said it wasn't clear whether the company lost any sales. For one thing, customers could still pay by cash or cheque. For another, she said, most of the stores still have devices for manually taking an imprint of a customer's credit card.