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From: urlichs@smurf.ira.uka.de
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Bug in Microsoft Excel
Message-ID: <1484@smurf.ira.uka.de>
Date: 5 Feb 90 18:09:00 GMT
References: <4769@utastro.UUCP> <3712@cbnewsj.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: urlichs@smurf.ira.uka.de (Matthias Urlichs)
Organization: Smurf-O-Box Karlsruhe, FRG
Lines: 24

In comp.sys.mac ralph@cbnewsj.ATT.COM (Ralph Brandi) writes:
< In article <4769@utastro.UUCP> bill@utastro.UUCP (William H. Jefferys) writes:
< 
< >When reading a TEXT file with a date, Excel consistently subtracts
< >4 years and 1 day from the date. Thus, a text file containing
< >the date 3/10/90 will have the date converted to 3/9/86 when
< >Excel reads it.
< 
< 4 years and 1 day....  Why does that sound so familiar?
< 
< Could it be that the default start date for the Macintosh is January
< 1, 1904?  Subtract 4 years and 1 day from that and you get December
< 31, 1899 (or maybe midnight, January 1, 1900....)
< 
Don't forget that 1900 was _not_ a leap year, so if you forget to consider
that fact in your date calculation, the additional day starts to make sense.

< Nah, Microsoft wouldn't be so stupid as to start counting from the
< wrong day....

Indeed not. They have some far more stupid things they're currently doing.

-- 
Matthias Urlichs