---From a programming list, thought it might amuse....
>>Last night, on a program about the Millenum Bug, we were told that if the
>>computers on board the 1969 Appllo(?) space probe had been built with the
>>capacity to allow for a four digit year, they would have been too heavy to
>>permit lift off.
>
>
>Makes sense.
>
>In binary:
>
>nineteen is 10011
>sixty-nine is 1000101
>
>So if we take it as read that ones weigh something, and zeros
>weigh nothing, just by adding the 19 to the date you are
>actually _doubling_ the weight of the date!
>
>Lay people don't understand this, they think that 19 is a smaller
>number, but they don't understand computers work in binary.
>
>However, relief is in sight. Once we enter the twentieth century
>dates will require much less ones, thereby making dates lighter the
>world over. I forecast a boom in aviation, communication satellites,
>space flight and pocket computers.
>
>As IT professionals we have a duty to explain this to the
>ignorant masses.
>
>Gavin S. Sinclair I.T. Officer PGME Glasgow
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