1st December 1996Re: EUG #28.
Gus' Editorial. Like you I like to use things rather than keep them purely for value. In my case it's Malt Whisky. I'm a member and shareholder of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society and I hold a few bottles of Society Malts from distilleries that are now defunct for one reason or another and may never or cannot be seen again. One is a 26 year old. My wife says hang on to it as "It may become valuable!" but I say "Not in my lifetime so I will drink it!" in due course!
The Society Malts are at cask strength so are over 100% proof - this and age tends to make them relatively costly and they need a little Highland Spring water! Still, who minds paying for the Angels share?
Roy Warner. Strange, I was going to ask the same question about Click. I suppose if the calendar cannot be altered, one can always fudge the arithmetic so that one mentally adds or subtracts years (user choice) after 1998 to get the correct year and correct days of the week. Click would not then be scrap. I'll have to give it some more thought.
I have just thought "What about the time clock on my Mitac?" So I have called up "Time And Date" and reprogrammed to 00 00 01hrs at 01 2000, and entered. Up came Saturday 1 01 2000 00, then 01, etc. Software by Visionsoft - no problem; they have used all four digits for the year. Very sensible. Space saving by only using two or three digits is all very well but the software must cover all eventualities.
A little history. Leap Year - or Bissextile, was fixed by Julius Caesar, 45 BC, the addition of one day in every four years bringing the measure of the calendar year even with the astronomical year with three minutes per year over. The Gregorian Calendar corrected this by dropping leap year at the centuries not divisible by 400. Thus, 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not leap years though divisible by 4.
Now here's the rub. The EUG #28's LEAP YEAR utility gives 2000 as not a leap year! Also, as I read it, the letter says the same. If line 250 is changed by deleting "2000" and substituting "1700 OR a%=1800 OR a%=1900" then the program will give correct answers from 1501 to 2099, although the Gregorian calendar was not introduced into Italy by Pope Gregory XIII until 1852, and not in England until 1752 when we found that we were eleven days behind the Continent. It was not introduced into Russia until 1918 and they refer to Old Style and New Style dates by "OS" and "NS" accordingly. All this leads to a need for a little sophisticated computer programming.
Further checking for peace of mind! The 200 year calendar in my Oregon organiser shows 29/2/2000, and the MITAC accepts retiming to 29/2/2000 but will not accept 29/2 if with a non leap year. Hooray!
Another point is that the start of the next millennium is immediately after the end of 2000 and not at the beginning of 2000. Irrespective of this, ever since I was a boy I have looked forward to seeing 2000 once I realised that I could live that long.
PS. Thanks for the article on adding a 5.25" drive to a 3.5" setup. As I have not got round to doing this yet in spite of earlier advice from other members, this may give me the incentive!
Tony Boarer, EUG #29
