Negative times

[gavin]

Am I right in saying that the 1904 date system allows negative times to be
displayed but the 1900 system doesn't? I have tried this in the timesheet I
have been developing and it seems to be solving my problems anyway. I don't
understand why though -can anyone explain.


Regards,



Gavin

 

[JE McGimpsey]

IIRC:

I believe it was an effort to be 1-2-3 compatible when XL was ported to
PC. The original Excel, (MacXL 1) used the 1904 date system and could
display negative times, as it still does.

When MS ported XL to Windows, to be compatible with the dominant PC
spreadsheet program, they deferred to the 1-2-3 1900 date standard,
which added the non-existent Feb 29, 1900, and didn't display negative
times.