> Van: Sean Breheny <shb7@CORNELL.EDU>
> Aan: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
> Onderwerp: Re: There is a problem with the date ???.
> Datum: maandag 22 juni 1998 23:18
>
> THere must be something that I am totally not noticing, but I can not
> ever remember seeing a PC whose BIOS couldn't handle years >2000. Not
> that I went and tested every one, but I have sometimes seen PC's dates
> accidentally get set to a year like 2048. I can buy that banks and the
> gov't will have a problem with older systems, but I have always been
> under the impression that it was standard in PCs to store the date in a
> format offset from some recent year (I think 1980). I also thought that
> at least 8 bits were devoted to it.
>
> Sean

[Cut]

Sean, you seem to mix-up two types of date-storage.  One of the BIOS
(stored into the real-time clock), and one of DOS (the file-management)
wich is, as you say, offsetted by 1980 and is 7 bit _binary_.

The third type (and thats the type all the fuss is al about) is the one
embedded in _third-party_ software/firmware/hardware that uses only two
ASCII-digits to store the date.

Greetz,
  Rudy Wieser