| COMET 2010 - another problem with the date |
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Comet programs work with a 6-place date format. There’s a reason for that: in the early 80s memory was limited and expensive. In some cases it was possible to save as much as 50 per-cent of memory capacity with the help of clever date formats. As a result, Comet was not compatible with the year 2000. In the mid-80s no one expected Comet to have such a long life. The Nixdorf company was taken over by Siemens AG in 1990. This was followed by diverse takeovers and spin-offs, with Comet passing from hand to hand. Respective owners were in-terested in the customer database. They would have been happy to bestow a new product on Comet customers, an endeavor sometimes crowned by success. But by the end of the 90s, it was apparent that not every customer was willing to part with Comet without resistance. So the product was made compatible with the year 2000, with clearance until 2007. This approach shifted the end of life to the year 2010. But why an ap-proach limited to 10 years was chosen can only be guessed at. The limitation to a 10-year extension is not due to the possible physical memory capacity, for 50 years could be enabled using this approach. This restriction can also be eliminated by re-moving the year-2000 extension. Conversion of Comet and individual programs – our solutionWith our time-proven tools used for the Y2K conversion we can extend Comet programs for another 40 years. While doing so, we use computerized procedures to check the compatibility of individual changes that may have found their way into the programs. With this method we can handle individual programs on a largely automated basis. So we can offer you a dependable conversion. Talk to us.Further date-related problems with CometThe base date is an extremely compact way to work with dates. With this type of calculation it was only possible, right from the beginning, to cover a range of 7 years. So the base date has to be reset from time to time. If complications arise, you can change the date, for Cross-Basic for instance, with the help of Super User Functions / Configuration / System Settings. We recommend the setting Current Year minus 3 years.21 years, 10 months and a few days after installation a number of modules will face a new date hurdle, e.g. the flexitime module. If you run into this obstacle in Comet’s flextime module or in any other one, we can provide you with a conversion program. |
