Sam Heywood wrote:
> Back in the good old days of DOS version 1.0 and CPM, many programs
> were written in which forms were processed under an infinite loop
> routine which provided for a keyboard input of "9999" as the
> "stop program" command, being the only valid input for exiting the
> loop and ending the program. A computer operator running such a
> program would encounter a prompt stating "Enter the date". To stop
> the program and exit, the operator would simply enter "9999". A
> program properly written to work in this fashion would always
> execute just fine and never produce any problems except in the
> special case in which the operator intended to enter "9999" as a
> valid date, rather than as a "stop program" command. During the
> era in which the programs were written, everybody "assumed" (and you
> know what this means) that the programs would have been superseded
> and replaced by new programs prior to September 9th, 1999.
The key here is that you write "a keyboard input of "9999" as the "stop
program" command". So the way to solve this is easy just don't enter that
into the computer (and why not ask the computer for the date?).
More to the point: (19)990909 doesn't contain four 9:s (9999) in a row
(imagine if we only had 9 months a year and 9 days in each of them!)
//Bernie
http://hem1.passagen.se/bernie/ DOS programs, Star Wars ...
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