-=> Quoting Melanie Baillot to Arun Jayaprakash <=-

 > Leonard Erickson and Arun Jayaprakash discussed 
 > about Any solution for this? <
 
 AJ>  Hi Leonard! 
 
 LE> Y = year stored as an offset from 1980 (0=1980, 127=2107)
 AJ>  So after 2107, we will have a problem similar to Y2K I suppose.

 MB> Yes! But also a note, Windows 95, I'm not sure about '98, if you go to
 MB> the clock, you won't be able to go over 2099, so yes, we'll have
 MB> another problem next century. 
 MB> Can someone explain why they just can't do it from 1000 to 9999 ??

 MB> There must be some mathematical thing to calculate at what day the
 MB> begining of a year starts etc... 

There is. Dos doesn't store the day of the week for files.

The problem is that to store 1000 to 9999 requires the ability to store
numbers up to 8999. That requires a *minimum* of 14 bits. Storing the
month requires a minimum of 4 bits. Storing the day of the month
requires 5 bits. Storing the hour requires 5 bits, the minute requires
6 bits, and the seconds requires another 6 bits. That gives a total of
40 bits. DOS stores the date & time of a file in *32* bits.

If you decide to just store a count of seconds (the way Unix does), you
have to do a *much* more complex calculation for every file when you do
a simple directory. But you do save a few bits...

9000 years is roughly 284,012,568,000 seconds. It'll take 38 bits to
represent. Wow. We saved a whole 2 bits. And it *still* won't fit the
32 bits DOS allocates. 

32bits will store a seconds count equivalent to 49,710 days. Or a bit
over 136 years. The way DOS stores the data is only good for 127 years.
Whoopee. Big difference.

The problem is not how to code the info. It's how to make the
transition from the *old* data structure to the new one.
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