CHECK PRINTERS GET PREPARED FOR 2000.

Byline: Lee Quarnstrom Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

What's perhaps the first everyday harbinger of the impending end of the millennium is so tiny it's barely noticeable:

As the year 2000 approaches, the space to write the date on most new bank checks no longer includes the helpful ``19'' followed by a space for the annum, i.e., ``96'' for the present 12-month period.

``Yes, it's because of the end of the century coming,'' said an employee of Deluxe Corp., the country's largest check-printing firm.

Indeed, the current Deluxe catalog includes only a smattering of checks with the printed ``19'' for bank customers too lazy to write the entire four-digit number for the year. The vast majority of new check styles, which range from cute and scenic versions for the frivolous to drab and businesslike drafts for the dull, include one long, blank line for customers to write the date.

``It's only a little thing,'' said Coast Commercial Bank representative Becky Tanaka in Santa Cruz.

``But,'' noted Tanaka, who acknowledged she hadn't noticed the difference until it was pointed out to her, ``as the 21st century arrives, these little things will ultimately add up to big change.''

This ``little change'' doesn't personally affect Tanaka's boss, Coast Commercial President Harvey Nickleson.

``You don't ever have to write the whole date out,'' he said. ``What I do is just use numbers, like 8/2/96 instead of August 2, 1996.

``The biggest question, though, is, will we still be using checks, or even using cash, in 10 or 20 years?

``The answer is, yes, we will. Their demise was predicted in 1960, when people started to talk about the `paperless society.' Sure, there are more and more transactions using debit cards and credit cards and electronic transfers and phone banking, but there will be cash and people will still be writing checks.''