WP34s: date functions and negative years

[walter b]

(01-17-2015 07:19 PM)Dieter Wrote:  I hope this thread encourages the 34s team to change the weird and inconsistent behaviour I described. IMHO the calculator should either throw an error or return a correct result. The latter of course is the preferred solution. There is no third option - not for a calculator on the level of a 34s. And there is a reason why the JD count starts at JD 0 = 1 January 4713 B.C., so arguing that "no one needs date calculations in this range" is not exactly convincing.

Oh dear, that 34S project confronts me with problems I didn't even know before

Seriously, JD 0 was defined to cover all recorded human astronomical observations IIRC. OTOH, how shall the poor WP 34S know that an input of -1.012345 (in D.MY or M.DY) shall mean New Year's day of the year 2345 B.C.? There's a reason why ISO defined Y.MD as standard format for dates.

d:-)