Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!sun-barr!decwrl!shlump.nac.dec.com!shodha.dec.com!devine
From: devine@shodha.dec.com (Bob Devine)
Newsgroups: comp.std.internat
Subject: Re: International time zones
Message-ID: <406@shodha.dec.com>
Date: 1 Sep 89 01:45:23 GMT
References: <392@shodha.dec.com> <26807@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Organization: Digital Equipment Corp. - Colorado Springs, CO.
Lines: 16

In article <26807@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>, wales@valeria.cs.ucla.edu (Rich Wales) writes:
> 	Negative zone numbers are east of 0 degrees latitude (the Prime
> 	Meridian); positive numbers are west (note: this is opposite the
> 	Unix convention).
> 
> The sign convention, in fact, goes the other way.
> If you used ARPA RFC822 as your source, you should be aware that RFC822
> got the signs wrong in its definition of the one-letter zone names.

  You are right.  I had first entered it correctly, checked some of
the reference material and then reversed it!  Naturally one of the
references was RFC822.  The other was Doris Doane's "Time Changes in
The USA".  My parenthetical comment about "unix is opposite" is correct
and should have pointed out to me my error.  Checking a reference by
NIST (was NBS) shows the east=positive and west=negative rule.  Arrgh!

Bob Devine (never believe two random references....)