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In a message dated 99-09-08 08:39:02 EDT, robert.cummings@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
writes:
> ** 9-9-99 could cause computer problems
>
> PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - The Year 2000 computer bug isn't the only
> date-related problem that could trip up computers across the country
> in coming months. Just ask Phil White Hawk, a member of a Unity town
> committee that is preparing for a glitch that could strike on
> Thursday. The date 9-9-99 resembles the "9999" that many programmers
> used as a signal to quit, which means some computers could read the
> date as a signal to stop running a program, he said. "We think that
> 9-9-99...is going to be the start of things," said White Hawk, a
> member of the Unity Year 2000 Preparedness Committee
Egads. I think this is almost hysteria. When I was involved with a lot of
programming albeit scientific, we used the 999 string, but first of all we
used it as a negative ie -999 and usually used a floating point number like
-999.25. Even if that isn't the case variables had to be assigned that
number as an initialization, and then tested along the way after there was
the possiblity of valid data. And yes as new uses came along, the new data
streams had to be checked, and once it was found that data contained that
level of number, the test number had to be changed. Surely no one would be
testing for and end of data stream in the same manner they check a date to
see of something is valid. If this event on 9-9-99 hits anyone, they have
one heck of an incompetent programmer, in my humble opinion.
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