FORMAT C:

Massively conceived, neatly chiseled computer novel that begins on the wrong foot with lists of consumer goods enjoyed by a sybaritic hero only a Honda Del Sol salesman could love. Black (The Transfer Agreement, 1984) soon gets past this sticker-price prose by revealing that Chicago publisher Dan Levin has sold his bundle of magazines to Ben Hinnom, a megabillionaire and multinational media-conglomerate Australian who plans to reorganize all computers on the planet behind his Windgazer 99 multitask operating system. But first he must take over the Zoom operating system, just being introduced and better than his own. But is Windgazer, which will run every chip everywhere, actually a device of . . . well, does 99.9 upside down give you a hint, a touch of Revelation? The plot turns on the Y2K millennium glitch and Windgazer’s lightning ability to fight off all computer failures worldwide, including those in air-traffic control, the financial markets, the credit-card industry, the Internet, etc. When the world taps into the system on the midnight of the millennium, will mankind fall into the devil’s hands—or bring about salvation by typing