At 10:03 AM -0700 9/18/97, Tim May wrote:
There's simply no way that much code can be refactored to get the "00" problem fixed. It isn't, of course, just a matter of doing a search-and-replace on "00" and replacing it with "2000." For example, the date code was picked to be 2 digits (back in the 1950s and 60s and well into the 70s, 80s, and even 90s) to save space. Switching to 4-digit dates would require recompilation of the code (for which the compilers may not even run properly any longer), and the old hardware will of course not accept straightforwardly recompiled code (because part of the code "tucked" these compressed numbers into small registers, as but one of many examples).
Note also that the standard date format for OS/360 and its descendents is the "Julian" date, a YYDDD format. This means those old compilers have to be changed to use a different system call to get the current date. In 1969, my wife participated in a previous "expand the date" project for a company in San Francisco. They converted from one digit dates to two digits. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | Internal surveillance | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | helped make the USSR the | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz@netcom.com | nation it is today. | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA