I’ll keep it short and sweet. If the year 1972 has the same days as 2000 why can’t we just st all of our VCR’s computers etc to January 1 1972??
You sound reasonable…it must be time to up my medication
Was your VCR built before 1972? Why would the guy that programmed the chip in it, program it to recognize any year prior to when it was built?
Why would he bother programming it NOT to?
I don’t have a “perpetual calendar” handy; is 1972 the most recent year that has the dates on the same days of the week as 2000?
D’OH
You’re right. Nuff said. I’m giving myself thirty lashes with a wet Wheatie as we speak.
Won’t the perpetual calender get all screwed up in 2000? I seem to remember from somewhere that even though every fourth year is a leap year that if the year is divisble by 200 you skip the Feb. 29 bit? Or am I like totally trashed in my head tonight from the bovine methane problem?
Funneefarmer:
Don’t beat yourself up too hard about your first answer. Set your PC to 1972 and you’ll see what I mean. A VCR would obviously have fewer problems, but lets assume that VCR+ would be a loss, at the least.
On the other hand, go ahead and beat yourself up on the leap year thing. It works like so: If a year is divisible by 100, skip Feb. 29. If it is also divisible by 400, put it back in. Cecil has addressed this. There may have been an additional rule beyond that, but since it won’t be operative during my lifetime, I didn’t pay attention. (which is how the whole Y2K thing started)
This is important. My the first part of my post was rhetorical. Do Not Reset Your Computer To 1972.
This is not an offer to agree or disagree with opinions, which may be done only by a current prospectus.
Although, some devices (PC’s included)cannot be set back past a certain date. Many PC’s begin dates at 1980 or so to conserve space in the BIOS.
To deal with men by force is as impractical as to deal with nature by persuasion.
In the Gregorian calendar, the rule is to have a leap year if the year is divisible by 4, but not by 100, unless by 400. So 2000 will be a leap year, just like 1996 and 2004.
A proposal has been floating around to make it not a leap year if divisible by 4000. I have yet to see an absolute statement from an authoritative source about whether or not this proposal has been accepted, but it seems that it has not.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
Lumpy asked: I don’t have a “perpetual calendar” handy; is 1972 the most recent year that has the dates on the same days of the week as 2000?
Yep. Every 28 years is the same calendar, except for if that 28 years spans a non-divisible-by-400 century year.
Reason? Every normal year has 52 weeks, 1 day. Every 7 years would be the same except for leap years, which throw this system off another day. But after 28 years, there will be 7 leap days and 28 “remainder” days = 35 days. This being evenly divisibly by 7 means the year will start the same as the one 28 years before.
With the exception of leap years, a calendar can be reused every 6 years. Reminds me of a story of someone printing a calendar of 50s icons but didn’t finish in time. A couple years passed, then hehe noticed that the same calendar could be used again, but he still didn’t finish in time. Six years later, he finally got his calendar published. This was when Happy Days was popluar, and they guy cashed in on the nostalgia!
“Age is mind over matter; if you don’t mind, it don’t matter.” -Leroy “Satchel” Paige