ldo@waikato.ac.nz (Lawrence D'Oliveiro, Waikato University) (01/31/91)
In article <1991Jan31.022340.12265@verity.com>, anders@verity.com
(Anders Wallgren) makes the following comment about the system
reference date/time:
"(WHY do they [use 1st January 1904]? It seems REALLY gratuitous to go
that far back)..."
I assume you're just kidding, here...
There are many applications where you want to represent dates outside
the actual lifetime of the machine (or of the person using it...).
System 6.0 introduced new Script Manager routines which support dates/
times spanning a range of, if I remember correctly, about 50,000 years.
Lawrence D'Oliveiro fone: +64-71-562-889
Computer Services Dept fax: +64-71-384-066
University of Waikato electric mail: ldo@waikato.ac.nz
Hamilton, New Zealand 37^ 47' 26" S, 175^ 19' 7" E, GMT+13:00bayes@hplvec.LVLD.HP.COM (Scott Bayes) (02/02/91)
Actually a start of 1904 removes 1 term from the seconds-to-date-and-time calculation, within the range 1904-x (x=2099?? I forget) Starting at 1900 would add the requirement for that term back in. I know 2 OSs that use 1-mar-04 for this reason (the mar-1 start removes a fiddly bit for the Feb 29 preceding that day). Scott Bayes