EH>  
 EH>  
 EH>   

 EH> these three make a total of 6 bytes. which is 12 digits 
 EH> coded in hex, which is again one digit too much for 8.3.
 EH> The one hex-digit is solveable, but I wanted to put in 
 EH> an extra code/number for the case in which the routine 

Your long int doesn't really need 8 hex characters. If you express time
with an LSB of .1 sec then the largest possible value is...

((23*60+59)*60+59)*10+9 = 863999, which is D2EFF hex so you can save three
hex characters there if you don't mind possibly repeating every 24 hours.
If you try to include 'day' within your time value then your back to using
a full 12 hex characters. At that point, you might want to consider using
something larger than base sixteen (no sense wasting the letters G-Z).

Bill


--- Maximus/2 2.01wb