Subj : Dates and Times
To   : Ed Vance
From : Everett Hertenstein
Date : Mon Oct 01 2001 01:46 pm

Ed Vance wrote in a message to All:

 EV> While looking at something I did today 26 September 2001 I noticed
 EV> that the Date/Time Code had increased a digit from its' usual
 EV> "9xxxxxxxx" format to a larger "1xxxxxxxxx" size.

 EV> Being as nosey as I am about this here computer stuff I had to try
 EV> to calculate on my own what the figures meant but no luck.

 EV> By looking at it, it seems that it "might" be a Binary Coded
 EV> Decimal (BCD) format 5 bytes long.  I'm not sure.

I don't know about BCD, but remember, your computer has a TIMER function that 
keeps track of the number of seconds that have elapsed since midnight.  You can 
read this from QBasic with the command "PRINT TIMER" which will give the time 
in seconds to two decimal places.

I didn't pursue the idea beyond doing a quick look at the difference between 
the last five digits of your two entries below. 

Assuming the last 4 digits are time in seconds, there is a difference of 200 
between the two numbers.  That's 3.3 minutes.


 EV> Here are some example of Dates and Times and what appears in either
 EV> the History window or in Bookmark Properties.

 EV> History window or
 EV> Bookmark Properties     The Coded Numbers
 EV> --------------------------------------------
 EV> 9/6/2001  11:55PM       "999834912"
 EV> 9/6/2001  11:58PM       "999835112"

If you explore this, how about telling a guy who just can't seem to get his 
head in gear?  I'd appreciate it.

   Everett
       Internet:  evhert@juno.com 
--- timEd 1.10.y2k
 * Origin:  My Point   -=-   Nashville TN., USA (1:116/35.4)

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