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> From: Bruce Toback <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: year 2000 on PCs
> Date: Saturday, February 01, 1997 12:40 PM
>
> For what it's worth, my HP150, running DOS 3.22, has no problem with
year
> 2000 dates. It does not accept 00 as a valid date, but it does accept
> 2000 and beyond. It also rolls over from 1999 to 2000, and from 2000 to
> 2001, and from 2009 to 2010 (by which time I probably won't be using
it).
> I have no way to verify that the same would be true with non-OEM
versions
> of DOS.
>
> My manual for Microsoft Excel V1.0 states that Excel's date functions
> cover the range January 1, 1904 to February 6, 2040. However, Excel 1.0
> was a Macintosh-only product, and this is the same range as was covered
> by the Mac OS at the time. It's possible that Excel running on a
> DOS/Windows platform has different restrictions if it uses OS routines
to
> manipulate dates.
>

There is some confusion on the MS-DOS issue and the Year 2000.  The
problem is not necessarily with MS-DOS, but with the BIOS of the system
itself.  There are older BIOS chips which when a certain year rolls
around, it will reset itself to it's original BIOS Creation Year.

For example, there was a real old chip used in 8088s which did this in
1996.  There weren't many of these around and it didn't make headlines.

As for Microsoft products, the latest 16-bit MS Office products are OK
using the 00-49/50-99 formula which is also used in the Office for Win95
and Office 97.  All products coming out of MS now which rely on dates have
this algorithm built into them, and this includes Windows itself (Windows
95).

Hope this clears up some of the confusion...

Best,
Joe

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Joe Geiser
CSI Business Solutions
[log in to unmask]
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