STOOPID QSTN: Why does the date calculation start at the last day of 1899?

[TrulyVisceral]

Like, why exactly 30th of December of 1899?
Why not further back?
Was it just to keep the amounts relatively manageable?



EDIT: I mean, I know negative values are a thing, I'm just asking why it STARTS at 1899.

[June7]

Because Microsoft said so? Why is this important to bother trying to determine any other rationale? And the 30th is not the last day of 1899, the 31st is.

Did you search web?

https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Fo...orum=accessdev

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/...stead-of-12-31

[TrulyVisceral]

Why is this important to bother trying to determine any other rationale?

Hence the title of the thread STOOPID QSTN.
Also because.

Dunno, thought at one point they actually gave a reason or smth.

[TrulyVisceral]

Did you search web?

https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Fo...orum=accessdev

I could show a bunch of screencaps of every google search I made, but whatevs, thnx.

[CJ_London]

I think it was the birthdate of the mother of the person who decided to start it on that date

[TrulyVisceral]

So... basically, no real answer? Just likely answers. Got it.

Seriously, everything I type makes me come across as a ƨinƸꟼ.

[isladogs]

So... basically, no real answer? Just likely answers. Got it.

Seriously, everything I type makes me come across as a ƨinƸꟼ.

I wouldn't dream of responding to that.

Why do any start on the date they do?
Because every calendar system needs a start date as a reference point.

UNIX dates start on 1/1/1970 - why? Because a decision was made to use that date
Different religious faiths based their calendars on events that cannot be verified for certain.

And now to really confuse you - Access & Excel have different start dates
Furthermore Apple uses a different start date from Microsoft

This is taken from: http://www.officearticles.com/excel/...soft_excel.htm

Date Formulas and Functions in Microsoft Excel

Excel stores dates in sequential serial numbers beginning with January 1st, 1900 as 1.
January 1st, 2006 is 38718 because it's 38,718 days after January 1st, 1900.
Excel on MAC works the same, except the dates start on January 1st, 1904. Don't ask me why.

[TrulyVisceral]

Stuff

When will this fractured world ever heal?

[isladogs]

Hey you misquoted me.... I didn't say "Stuff"

[Micron]

Wasn't this the result of the Y2K phenom? In the beginning, when the earth was without form, years were only 2 digits. Eventually, some genius realized that after 1999, there will be a problem seeing as how 00 was 1900, 01 was 1901... 99 would be 1999. Now what do you do in the year 2000?? So I think the decision was made that if you insisted on still only recording the last 2 digits of a date, 00 became 2000, 01 is 2001. If you want to store 1901, better use all four. I long ago adopted the habit of 4 digit years. The starting point became the last day of 1899. Maybe I'm off base, but if I was on Who Wants to be a Millionaire...

As for the Y2K buzz, planes were supposed to fall out of the sky, everyone's money would disappear from the banks, elevators wouldn't work... Some companies made a pile of money selling fixes to uninformed businesses.

[CJ_London]

As for the Y2K buzz

The only instance I had experience of was gaining a client to write a new invoicing system. Their existing system fell over on 29th Feb 2000 and the original developer (actually a well know supplier of invoicing software for their particular industry) wanted to charge a fortune to fix it. My quote for a new system was less....