Jim Swanson wrote:
>
> Information system managers are all abuzz about the millenium. They have
> looked into the future, and forecast widespread disaster for the year 2000.
>
> You can forcast the fate of your own system by setting the clock to 11:55
> p.m. on December 31, 1999, shutting down for ten minutes, and re-booting.
>
> When you alter a file, what date does the system assign to the change? If
> you sort newly-altered files by date of change, how do they stack up? If
> you have a spreadsheet or accounting program, how many days does it say
> have elapsed between records that span the centuries (which really don't
> change until 2001, I know).
>
> If you use an accession or catalog numbering system that uses the last two
> digits of the year, will you now start over with 00?<< SNIP out some
MacSmugness>>

Dates in almost all spreadsheets are stored as the number of days since
some arbitrary day in the past (for example Excel for the MAC uses
1-1-1904; for the PC 1-1-1901) these dates are stored as floating point
numbers. The century change will have little or no impact. How you
format and present those names will.

The DOS date function is a lowlevel system call stored in BIOS. WINDOWS
and WIN 95 both know and understand dates past the millenia. In native
DOS there is no provision for setting a four digit date, programs and
functions exist to do this.


--
Andrew J. L. Cary, Senior Curmudgeon,
Cary Consulting Services
E-Net:  [log in to unmask]