Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!ucdavis!iris!lim
From: lim@iris.ucdavis.edu (Lloyd Lim)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: The number 31 and Apple?
Message-ID: <3794@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>
Date: 10 Mar 89 23:39:35 GMT
References: <10330143@accuvax.nwu.edu> <901@internal.Apple.COM> <905@internal.Apple.COM>
Sender: uucp@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu
Reply-To: lim@iris.ucdavis.edu (Lloyd Lim)
Organization: U.C. Davis - Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Lines: 40

In article <905@internal.Apple.COM> casseres@Apple.COM (David Casseres) writes:
>In article <901@internal.Apple.COM> stearns@Apple.COM (Bryan Stearns) writes:
>
>>[...]
>>There's no Technical Note 31 because the individual TechNote authors used to
>>assign their own numbers ("Hey, Scott! What's the next number?") BEFORE
>>writing the note; sometimes we wouldn't get around to finishing a note, and
>>the number we picked would get reassigned (or, in this case, not).
>
>Bryan, are you SURE???  I thought it was connected to the fact that a week
>has 7 days and a (normal) month has 31, because both numbers are all-one's
>in binary so when you implement a binary-logic calendar you get ... Oh,
>never mind.

Gee, both of you are from Apple so this makes me hesitant about sticking my
neck out on the line.  But here goes...

I was sure that the reason 31 was not used was because someone released an
April fools Tech Note #31 that was a parody of Tech Notes.  Then someone at
Apple released a Tech Note of the same number that was even more ridiculous
in response to make sure that everyone knew the first one was not written
by Apple and was somebody's joke.  I'm sure this happened because I remember
seeing it in the back of someone's book on Mac programming (Scott Kronick
or someone?).  The Tech Note made fun of a previous quote that said the
System would never change during the running of an application.  It warned
Mac programmers that things really might change after all and that you would
have to continually check for the existence of traps, hardware additions, and
such while your application is running.

OK, maybe I have the Tech Note number wrong, maybe I have the Tech Note writer
being parodied wrong, maybe I have it all wrong??!!  I was sure this was why
31 wasn't used though because a long time ago Apple went through and filled in
all the holes in the numbering.  The only other hole is 49 which was an
accidental duplicate of 44.  I don't usually blabber when I post...

+++

Lloyd Lim     Internet: lim@iris.ucdavis.edu
              Compuserve: 72647,660
              US Mail: 146 Lysle Leach Hall, U.C. Davis, Davis, CA 95616