The full How Many Days…? package consists of the How Many Days…? Documentation (this file you are now reading), A Brief History of Calendar Reform, and the How Many Days…? application.
How Many Days…? is shareware. If, after trying it out for a while, you decide you like it and wish to keep it, please send $7.75 (that’s just seven dollars and seventy-five cents) to Robert Howe, 5280 Sharon Lane, Placerville, CA 95667.
Revision History:
1.3.2: (silent) and (vocal)—December ‘93: Both versions had a minor bug fix with the Western Russian calendar that was introduced with 1.3.1. The silent release is functionally the same as the vocal release, except that no sound resources are included. (With a little ResEdit work and a sound-input capable Mac, it is possible to make the silent version vocal. Instructions follow.) • Please note that the only reason I made a silent version is because the ‘vocal’ version takes a terribly long time to download at 2400 baud. I did not and do not mean the silent version to be a ‘crippled’ version; that is why I made it possible for you to convert the silent version into the vocal version. •
1.3.1: December ‘92: Several major and minor modifications…(a) System 7 users no longer use a dialog box to select a calendar; they get a popup menu. The primary advantage for this is that I can now easily expand the number of calendars from which to choose. Of course, I added a few more calendars—more are coming for version 2!. System 6 users can still run How Many Days, but they are limited to the number of calendars that fit in the dialog box they get. (b) More string resources are used, so that alerts and dialogs can be changed according to your desires if you are handy with ResEdit. (c) Sound feedback, that recites the number or date calculated…also stored as resources, so you can put your own voice or the voice(s) of your kid(s) if you have a Mac capable of sound input. (d) Some preliminary restructuring of the code {getting ready for version 2!} (e) minor fixes, such as preventing the 'calculate' button, when dimmed, from highlighting when 'Enter' or 'Return' is pressed. (This version has had limited distribution as the sound resources take up a lot (300+) of disk space; too much for normal downloading)
1.2.2: Sept '92 —Bug fix. Under 1.2 and 1.2.1, finding a date under certain conditions would result in an invalid date appearing. For example, finding a day 20 days after 9/20/1918 in Western Russia would result in 9/40/1918.
1.2.1: Aug '92 —Unreleased refinement. Clicking the close box no longer immediately quit the program (you have to release the mouse button in the close box too).
1.2: July '92—finds dates given a number of days to/from another date.
1.1: June '92—first released version.
What does How Many Days…? do?
How Many Days…? does one thing, and one thing only: it calculates the number of days between any two dates from the year 1 up to and including the year 4000. Or, given a date and a number of days to or from the given date, How Many Days…? will find the date sought. The dates may be expressed in either the Julian calendar (started by Julius Caesar in the year 45 BC) or the Julian calendar’s successor, the Gregorian calendar (instigated by Pope Gregory in 1582 ad, and adapted by nearly every country in the world in the 400 years since then). Sorry, How Many Days…? does not (as yet) handle converting dates from other calendars (e.g., Chinese calendar, Jewish calendar, etc.).
Why use How Many Days…? instead of a spreadsheet program that performs date arithmetic?
Reason 1: To the best of my knowledge (i.e., Lotus 1-2-3 for the Macintosh and Microsoft Excel), spreadsheet date arithmetic is pretty much limited to dates around 1900 (1904 for Excel) through 2099 (2078 for Excel). Before How Many Days…?, you would have quite a challenge in figuring out the number of days for dates outside that range.
Reason 2: Even after 1904 some countries—Russia for one—were still using the Julian calendar. Using a Julian Calendar date in a spreadsheet program that assumes the Gregorian calendar results in an incorrect answer. How Many Days…? lets you choose the calendar to use. In some instances (and more to come later) How Many Days…? lets you simply select a country in order to automatically use whatever calendar was in effect on the date you choose.
Reason 3: How Many Days…? loads and runs much faster than any spreadsheet. Plus you do not have to figure out a spreadsheet’s formula for date arithmetic. And, most spreadsheets don't talk to you.
Where are the countries How Many Days…? can adjust calendars for?
For System 6 users, and as of version 1.3, How Many Days…? takes into account the calendar(s) in use by Great Britain, the United States, Russia, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Portugal, France, and Hungary. If your favorite country is not on this list, you can choose to use either the Julian calendar or the Gregorian calendar—if you know which is appropriate for the time.
System 7 users have the same choices as System 6 users, with the addition of the Roman Catholic states of Germany and the Protestant states of Germany. (Many more are waiting in the wings for the next major version release…)
Why does the country matter at all? The Gregorian calendar was not universally accepted by the countries of the world. As it was Pope Gregory XIII that ordered the change, Catholic countries adapted it reasonably quickly. Other Christian countries took longer as they resisted ‘popery’ telling them what to do. Non-christian countries generally ignored the calendar altogether until it was adapted for convenience in business transactions with the rest of the world.
For what years is How Many Days…? accurate?
How Many Days…? is accurate from the year 1 to the year 4000, with some reservations:
a) Leap Year Day has not always been celebrated on February 29. During the Roman times it was celebrated on our February 24—with February 24 occurring twice in a leap year. Over the centuries leap year day has changed; I am still researching its travels by year and by country. In the meantime, I have assumed a February 29 leap day. If either of your dates falls between February 24 and February 29, be aware that the result may need adjusting by a day.
b) New Year’s day has also moved. However, when Julius Caesar instituted his calendar he set January 1 as new year’s day. Generally this date has been observed as the historical start of the new year. But after the Roman Empire crumbled, different regions reverted to whatever day was their ‘original’ new year’s day. Some professions, countries, religions, … observed a different date as new year’s day—those more considerate of us living today would also reference the historical date if there was a chance of ambiguity. How Many Days…? needs the historical date for its calculations, and thus requires you to use the year beginning January 1. (Version 2—if I ever get there—should be able to take into account at least some regions’ different new years dates.)
c) Unless you are working from original documents, you may not know what calendar a date is from—textbooks may have converted a Julian date into a Gregorian date “for your convenience.” For example, the British Empire and colonies—the United States today, as well as portions of Canada—converted to the Gregorian calendar in 1752. But as the United States was formed shortly afterwards, a good number of important dates before 1752 have been converted to the Gregorian calendar for us by the history book writers.
Here’s an example: George Washington was born February 11, 1731 according to the Julian calendar & British civil new year’s date then in use. The British Empire changed to the Gregorian calendar in 1752, and at the same time moved its ‘civil’ new year’s day from March 25 to agree with the historical new year’s day of January 1. Thus February 11, 1731 (Julian calendar, British civil date) is the same as February 11, 1732 (Julian calendar, historical new year’s date) and is the same as February 22, 1732 (Gregorian Calendar). We in the United States have been spared this conversion by the history writers at the cost of our not knowing about the great calendar switch of 1752, and of now being uncertain whether a date before 1752 is the original Julian date (with the historical new year or the civil new year being specified) or whether the date has been converted to the Gregorian calendar for us.
How to tell the difference: Period documents may have the date followed by “OS” or “NS”. “OS” stands for “old style” or the Julian calendar. “NS” means “new style” and is the Gregorian calendar.
d) My sources for the dates of the calendar conversion have been many and varied, but I tended to rely on two primary references. The first is by JJ Bond: Handy Book of Rules and tables for verifying dates, printed originally in 1869. The second is The Book of Calendars by Frank Parise (1982) printed by Facts On File. There are occasional but significant disagreements between these two works. I tended to go along with The Book of Calendars in these matters only because it appeared to be more complete and thus, I surmised, more accurate. Nevertheless, I will start independently verifying the accuracy of these dates by writing to each country's embassy or other group as seems appropriate. If I get responses, I'll incorporate them into future revisions of How Many Days.
How did How Many Days…? develop?
It all started with my oldest daughter ( then six years old) asking me how old she was. When I told her, she said, “No Daddy, I mean how many days old am I?!” Kids…what can one do about them? What I did was fire up Lotus 1-2-3 for the Macintosh, worked out the formulas, and told her. If you have children, you know that questions lead to more questions, so finally I was working back to how many days old I was, Grandma was, Great-Grandma, and .... oops. 1900 is the limit for most spreadsheets.
A footnote in the book from which I got the date algorithm (a 1-day adjustment needs to be made for dates before 1900, and a 2 day adjustment for dates before 1800) got me started into calendar research. Taking into account different countries adoptions of the Gregorian calendar, the changing new years day, the changing leap year days, the proposals for a new world calendar, and so on, made for a most interesting project. Plus I won a few bets in the process.
Can I customize How Many Days…?
Why, yes, to a point—but please don't distribute any copy of How Many Days that you so modify. You will need a copy of ResEdit, Apple Computer's free resource editor. Of course the standard cautions apply: work on a backup copy, know what you are doing, etc, etc.
•As of version 1.3, about 99% of all the text that appears in dialog boxes is either in a string resource or as a static text item. You can change the text to suit yourself.
•You can add your voice (or someone else’s voice for that matter) so that you will hear the calculated date or number of days. {If you don’t want bother with this, you can send me a disk & SASE and I’ll send you the ‘vocal’ version. The shareware fee would be nice too but not required.}
To do this, you need ResEdit 2.1.1 and a sound-input capable Mac.
1) Open How Many Days…? with ResEdit
2) Open the “snd ” resource.
3) You will see a long list of sounds, each with a size of “0”. The sound names (“zero”, “one”, etc.) are what you need to record. You can record straight from ResEdit under the “snd ” menu. When you save the newly recorded sound ResEdit will not prompt you for a name or resource number—it will just save the sound without your leave. (Sorry!) You’ll have to find the sound you just recorded and copy it into the appropriate resource I have provided. Since How Many Days uses the resource number and not the name to find the sound, you must be sure to put the sound into the proper resource or the results will be “inappropriate” (to say the least!).
Oh, there is one sound called “Opening Sound” — this plays when How Many Days…? starts up. Put whatever you want for this one.
4) Close the “snd ” resource when you are finished.
5) Open the “MENU” resource.
6) Open menu 403 (the “Special” menu). Click on the grey line below “Reset Dates” and above “Capture Defaults”. To the right, select the “text” button and type in “Silent Calculation” in the text block. Add a command key if you feel like it. And make sure the “Enabled” box in the upper right is checked.
7) Close the “MENU” resource.
8) Open the “DITL” resource.
9) Open DITL #600 (Capture Preferences”). From the DITL menu, choose “Select Item Number” and type in the number “19”. Then delete (by pressing the delete key) the DITL item 19.
10) Close Resedit, saving your changes when you are prompted.
11) In the Finder, select How Many Days…? and ‘get info’ on it. Add a couple hundred K to the memory requirement for now to insure that How Many Days has enough memory to play the sounds. You can experiment with the memory requirement later; for now we just want to make sure all sounds will play.
That’s it. Now when you run How Many Days, choose “Silent Mode” from the “Special Menu” to remove the check mark. Then perform some calculation…How Many Days…? should tell you the answer!
What’s next for How Many Days…?
No software is ever finished. Such is the case for How Many Days…?. After an intense period at work (I got a new job a few months ago and have spent a lot of time doing work-related programming instead of my programming!), I now have some free time to pay attention to How Many Days…? again. Some items I want to do with How Many Days…? are:
* Add balloon help
* Add automatic internal virus check
* Add Apple Events
* auto highlighting of the TextEdit field during the error message
* pop-up month menu (perhaps made optional) with the months spelled out (I always have trouble with the later months…is "9" August or September?!)
* a ‘log’ file showing all date calculations, to allow for cutting/copying into another Macintosh application
* …and generally allowing the Edit menu functions to work
* user-definable default/reset dates, accessed through the menu or command-keys.
In addition, I want to make an XFCN version as well for HyperCard users.
If you have suggestions not listed above, please send them to me. I’ll do my best to incorporate them into future releases.
Known bugs and Potential problems:
I currently know of one problem with How Many Days, and let’s call this problem a product feature. (It's been around since version 1.1, and I have had the best intentions about fixing it, but what with time being short....) If you go wild & type in too many digits for a month, day, or year, the text will wrap down the tiny little box I gave you. If you calculate the date, error dialogs will appear giving you the opportunity to correct the invalid date. If you do correct it & continue with the calculation, the cursor will still be placed where it had wrapped, which is now far below the date, or the cursor may be off to the right, and some digits will be hidden by the left boundary of the text edit block. Hitting the ‘tab’ key will reset the TextEdit block and make everything nice again. I’ll fix this as soon as I learn more about the mysteries of TextEdit, which is near the top of my ‘to-do’ listing.
Bug reports should also be sent to me. Even if you can’t afford to pay the shareware fee, I’d still like to know about any problems encountered.
Shareware fee
How Many Days…? is shareware. If, after trying it out for a while, you decide you like it and wish to keep it, please send $7.75 (that’s just seven dollars and seventy-five cents) to Robert Howe, 5280 Sharon Lane, Placerville, CA 95667.
It’s not that I need the money. My employer—the State of California—has for the last year and a half given all employees a 5% pay cut, but that's OK. Anything to help the State in its tough times is OK by me. And my kids don’t really need winter coats, even though my home is not insulated and the nights here in the hills get below freezing. In spite of my Macintosh having been discontinued and is really slow compared to the faster and less expensive Quadras, I can get by with what I’ve got. No, what really needs money is my 1888 Columbia highwheel bicycle (see the ‘about’ box). The handlebars and seat spring cracked from age and metal fatigue, and although I got replacements machined from scratch, they still need to be nickel-plated to reduce the chance of rusting. That is an expensive proposition. So please, send in your shareware fee. If you include a disk and a self-addressed stamped envelope I will send you the latest version of How Many Days…?.
Thanks to:
◊ Everett for discovering and letting me know about the bug in finding dates in version 1.2. Hope you and Bella enjoyed the dinner at Lyon's!
◊ Price Club, for selling the PowerBook 100s (4/40 w floppy drive) for $899. I traded in my old portable so I can once again ride my bicycle to work.
◊ Bob Annenberg of MacNexus in Sacramento who suggested that How Many Days…? find a date given a number of days from/to another. Others had suggested this, but Bob pointed out examples of when it would actually be useful. His suggestion came within 24 hours of the release of version 1.1; it is the primary improvement for version 1.2.
◊ James Divine from West Richland, Washington who asked for more detail regarding the history of the calendar. I wasn’t sure if anyone would be interested; glad to know that at least one person is. The detail is presented in the file “A Brief History of Calendar Reform.”
A big thank you to all my v 1.1 beta testers: Anita Hay, Laura Lunetta, and Mark Taber (version 1.1) Your suggestions were invaluable.
Finally, to Unfriendly Loans, for helping finance this whole venture. I’ll make the next payment on time, I promise—if the shareware fees come in.
And the fine print:
Distribution
How Many Days…? is a Shareware program and is provided at no charge to the user for evaluation. You are encouraged to copy and distribute How Many Days…? for non-commercial use with the following restrictions:
•You may not modify the How Many Days…? application, the How Many Days…? Documentation, or the essay A Brief History of Calendar Reform in any way other than to change the font into one you find pleasing.
•You may not charge any fee for the use, copying, or distribution of How Many Days?” , the How Many Days…? Documentation” , or the essay A Brief History of Calendar Reform.
<< Commercial Distribution Of How Many Days…? >>
Clubs and user groups may charge a nominal fee (not to exceed $10) for expenses while distributing How Many Days…?. All other organizations must obtain written permission to distribute copies of How Many Days…? if any fee is charged for the use, copying, or distribution of the product.
I have given permission to AMUG to distribute How Many Days…? in their CD-ROM "BBS in a Box"
Warranty
How Many Days…? is supplied as is. Robert Howe hereby disclaims all warranties relating to this software, whether express or implied, including without limitation any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Robert Howe will not be liable for any special, incidental, consequential, indirect or similar damages due to loss of data or any other reason, even if Robert Howe, or an agent of Robert Howe has been advised of the possibility of such damages. In no event shall Robert Howe’s liability for any damages ever exceed the price paid for the license to use the software, regardless of the form of the claim. The person using the software bears all risk as to the quality and performance of the software.
******
Lotus and 1-2-3 are registered trademarks of Lotus Development Corporation.
Microsoft and Excel are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
Apple and Macintosh are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Incorporated.
Think C is a registered trademark of Symantec Corporation
Learn C on the Macintosh (written by Dave Mark) and Macintosh C Programming Primer, volumes 1 & 2, (vol 1 written by Dave Mark and Cartwright Reed; vol 2 written by Dave Mark) are published by Addison Wesley.
