February 29 - Leap year adjustment

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-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), December 06, 1999

Answers

[Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only]

New Computer Bomb Emerges on Feb. 29 for Leap-Year Adjustment

Source: Jiji Press English News Service

Tokyo, Dec. 4 (Jiji Press)--While most major companies have finished defusing the millennium computer bomb, a new bug is emerging as a potential hazard to computers as some software programs might not be able to recognize Feb. 29, 2000, properly.

The new glitch, linked to leap-year adjustment functions, could throw Japan's banking system into disarray as settlement programs may malfunction to set off a chain of defaults, experts warn.

A leap year comes every four years, with the exception of years that are divisible by 100, when February has 28 days just like other normal years.

Years divisible by 400, however, are leap years whose February has 29 days.

This complicated calendar system burdens computer programs with a cumbersome task of distinguishing quadricentennial leap years from centennial normal years.

Computers ill-prepared for this leap-year intricacy may misinterpret the year 2000, which is divisible by 400, as a normal year with 28 days in February and fail to recognize Feb. 29, experts say.

To make matters worse, most corporate fund settlements fall on the last business day of each month, with actual payments due a month later.

In 2000, Feb. 29, which falls on Tuesday, will thus be the first payment date for most corporate transactions and that worries many company executives.

A senior official of a leading chemical maker said if the leap- year computer bug should disrupt the company's settlements, that would be a major blow to clients' confidence in the firm's creditworthiness.

In an attempt to avert a possible disaster on Feb. 29, Japan's major automakers have decided to move up the settlement date for their group accounts to Feb. 28.

Many companies in other sectors are expected to follow suit as anxiety about the leap-year glitch keeps the business community on its toes well into the new millennium, observers say.

Publication date: Dec 04, 1999 ) 1999, NewsReal, Inc.

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-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), December 06, 1999.


"While most major companies have finished defusing the millennium computer bomb, a new bug is emerging ..."

NEW? He's been spending too much time at the water hole, with the other reporters.

-- Hokie (nn@va.com), December 06, 1999.


Key sentence:

[snip]

The new glitch, linked to leap-year adjustment functions, could throw Japan's banking system into disarray as settlement programs may malfunction to set off a chain of defaults, experts warn.

[snip]

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), December 06, 1999.


Back in the bad old '70's, I had System Programmers with IBM insist that any year that ended in 00 was NOT a Leap Year, and that this was the extent of the correction Pope Gregory made to the Calendar of Julius Caesar.

Question, when did we become aware of the Evenly Divisible by 400 Rule???



-- K. Stevens (kstevens@ It's ALL going away in January.com), December 06, 1999.


"THE GREGORIAN CALENDAR AND LEAP YEARS"

http://www.as.wvu.edu/~jel/skw9602a.htm


-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), December 06, 1999.


> Question, when did we become aware of the Evenly Divisible by 400 Rule???

Depends on who "we" includes.

In 1751 the British government, which ruled an extensive empire, was aware of it. That year it enacted a measure to change its (and its empire's) calendar from the Julian to the Gregorian method (and a few related matters such as changing the start of the calendar year in England from March 25 to January 1 to match the practice of other portions of the Dominions).

See Legal/calen dar act at http://www.urbanlegends.com/legal/calendar_act.html for an annotated version of that 1751 "Act for Regulating the Commencement of the Year; and for Correcting the Calendar now in Use".

I think it noteworthy that the 1751 Act specifically states that the years 2000, 2400, 2800, and every other fourth hundred year after 2000 shall be leap years. So citizens of countries in the former British Empire have had almost 250 years' advance notice of the existence of February 29, 2000.

When the United States of America formed, it carried over the portions of British common law which were not repealed or overruled by new U.S. legislation. That portion included the 1751 calendar act, so it has always been part of U.S. common law.

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), December 06, 1999.


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