Re: [HCDX]: International standards on Time - and Log Formats

[Chris Mackerell <chris@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Greg

Its been a few years since COBOL was an international
standard hasn't it ;-)

Being a bit of an amateur astromonmer, and a webmaster
trying to sort out Y2K problems, I'd definitely look
at a better date format than YYMMDD!!!

Cheers

Chris

Greg Baker wrote:
> 
> I would prefer to have all time read in HHMM format, with a one-character
> readout for the time zone.  Similarly, I also think dates should be in
> YYMMDD format, which is neither the American nor European manner, but makes
> a lot of sense when you're sorting files.
> 
> I don't CARE if it's called UTC or TUC, or Fred Standard Time, as long as we
> all understand about of what we talk.  "Z" is the standard abbreviation in
> NATO date-time group parlance for GMT.
> 
> I'm working on a series of COBOL programs to report loggings.  COBOL works
> best with fixed-width fields, so abbreviations would be useful.  Here's what
> I have in mind so far:
> 
> FREQUENCY    format  6 characters, 99999v9 - V being assumed decimal point:
> enter 6135 as
> 061350, or even 61350 and assume the leading zero.  (I don't want to use
> even KHz or MHz because some folks identify transmitters by how far they are
> off-freq.)
> 
> KiloHertz or MegaHertz - one character, values K, M, or G if you get sticky.
> 
> DATE-TIME format CCYYMMDD
> 
> TIME START - HHMn - it makes it easy as a sort key
> 
> TIME END - HHMn
> 
> ZONE - One character, Z for GMT, R for EST, A for CET, etc.  That way the
> software can convert the time to UTC.
> 
> STATION: 25 characters - too short or too long?
> 
> LANGUAGE: 3 characters: ENG, FRA, ESP, DEU, RUS, ABC, CHN, PTG, VER for
> vernacular, UNK for unknown.
> 
> SINPO: 5 characters, alphanumeric.  SIO would be 5X5X5.  RST as R599X
> 
> MODE: three characters; RTTY entered as RTY
> 
> TYPE OF PROGRAM:  2 alphanumeric characters.
> Proposed values to enter after a menu choice:
> 
> NX - news
> WX - weather report
> MX - music
> DX - our favorite type of program
> SX - sports
> RX - religious program
> 
> PROGRAM-NOTES: 25 characters alphanumeric
> 
> LOGGER: 8 characters
> 
> I hope to have the first program written tomorrow.
> 
> Greg Baker
> COBOL Dinosaur
> Laurel, MD
> /* resumes upon request */
> 
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--
Chris Mackerell, P.O. Box 2241, Wellington 6015, New Zealand
Home Phone: +64 (4) 232-4216      Fax: +64 (4) 385-2752 
Work Phone: +64 (4) 801-6716      Cellphone: +64 (25) 321 216
WWW: http://www.owdjim.gen.nz     Email: chris@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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This is a message from Chris Mackerell <chris@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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