[Lazarus] Date value "0"

[Mark Morgan Lloyd]

Tony Whyman wrote:
> I must say that I'm amazed at how long this thread is - but then I 
> shouldn't be.
> 
> Many moons ago, I used to work at the long gone British Mainframe 
> Computer company ICL. Here, there was a well used term "a bicycle sheds 
> argument". This supposedly came from the sales force retelling how the 
> board of a large company had once taken two minutes to approve the 
> purchase of a multi-million pound mainframe and then spent the next two 
> hours discussing a small bill for the repair of the office bicycle shed. 
> This was allegedly because they all understood bicycle sheds, but none 
> of them had a clue how a computer worked.

:-)

> This thread could well be an example of such an argument.
> 
> Perhaps we should leave it as:
> 
> The 24 hour clock is a modulo 24 numbering system, starting at midnight.
> 
> The 12 hour clock is a modulo 12 numbering system starting at midnight 
> and noon, where zero is conventionally written as "12", with conventions 
> distinguishing the periods between noon and midnight and midnight and noon.

Yes, I think that's a good informal description. Particularly in view of 
the fact that efforts were made to measure time in Europe before numeric 
zero was widely adopted.

Now please let's not get bogged down in "unequal hours".

-- 
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]