[TUHS] When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?

[TUHS] When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?

[Dave Horsfall]

The manpage for "cal" used to have the comment "Try September 1752" (and 
yes, I know why); it's no longer there, so when did it disappear?  The 
SysV fun police?

I remember it in Ed5 and Ed6, but can't remember when I last saw it.

Thanks.

-- Dave

[TUHS] Re: When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

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On Thursday, 11 July 2024 at 11:24:26 +1000, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> The manpage for "cal" used to have the comment "Try September 1752" (and
> yes, I know why); it's no longer there, so when did it disappear?  The
> SysV fun police?
>
> I remember it in Ed5 and Ed6, but can't remember when I last saw it.

It's still mentioned in the latest version of FreeBSD:

     -s country_code
             Assume the switch from Julian to Gregorian Calendar at the date
             associated with the country_code.  If not specified, ncal tries
             to guess the switch date from the local environment or falls back
             to September 2, 1752.  This was when Great Britain and her
             colonies switched to the Gregorian Calendar.

It sounds like that's not the quote you're thinking of, though.  I've
checked back as far as FreeBSD 1.0, which had a much simpler version
of cal.  The man page states

       The  Gregorian  Reformation  is assumed to have occurred in 1752 on the
       3rd of September.  By this time, most countries had recognized the ref-
       ormation (although a few did not recognize it until the early  1900's.)
       Ten days following that date were eliminated by the reformation, so the
       calendar for that month is a bit unusual.

Maybe you can find something more interesting in the TUHS archives.

Greg
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[TUHS] Re: When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?

[Dave Horsfall]

On Thu, 11 Jul 2024, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:

[...]

> Maybe you can find something more interesting in the TUHS archives.

I see someone has already answered it; thanks anyway.

-- Dave

[TUHS] Re: When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?

[Stuff Received]

On 2024-07-10 21:44, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote (in part):
> On Thursday, 11 July 2024 at 11:24:26 +1000, Dave Horsfall wrote:
>> The manpage for "cal" used to have the comment "Try September 1752" (and
>> yes, I know why); it's no longer there, so when did it disappear?  The
>> SysV fun police?
>>
>> I remember it in Ed5 and Ed6, but can't remember when I last saw it.
> 
[...]
> 
> It sounds like that's not the quote you're thinking of, though.  I've
> checked back as far as FreeBSD 1.0, which had a much simpler version
> of cal.  The man page states
> 
>         The  Gregorian  Reformation  is assumed to have occurred in 1752 on the
>         3rd of September.  By this time, most countries had recognized the ref-
>         ormation (although a few did not recognize it until the early  1900's.)
>         Ten days following that date were eliminated by the reformation, so the
>         calendar for that month is a bit unusual.

Solaris 11 has this version:

NOTES
        An unusual calendar is printed for September 1752. That is the
        month 11 days  were skipped to make up for lack of leap year
        adjustments. To see this calendar, type:

          cal 9 1752

S.

[TUHS] Re: When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?

[Henry Bent]

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On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 at 21:24, Dave Horsfall <dave@horsfall.org> wrote:

> The manpage for "cal" used to have the comment "Try September 1752" (and
> yes, I know why); it's no longer there, so when did it disappear?  The
> SysV fun police?
>
> I remember it in Ed5 and Ed6, but can't remember when I last saw it.
>
> Thanks.
>
> -- Dave
>

Looks like on the BSD side it disappeared between 4.3 Tahoe and Reno.  It's
in research through v10.  It's in SVR2; SVR4 modifies it to say "An unusual
calendar is printed for September 1752."  I don't seem to have manpages
with either of the SVR3 source distributions that I have handy.  So to
answer your basic question, it stayed around for quite a while.

-Henry

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[TUHS] Re: When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?

[Dave Horsfall]

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On Wed, 10 Jul 2024, Henry Bent wrote:

> Looks like on the BSD side it disappeared between 4.3 Tahoe and Reno.  
> It's in research through v10.  It's in SVR2; SVR4 modifies it to say "An 
> unusual calendar is printed for September 1752."  I don't seem to have 
> manpages with either of the SVR3 source distributions that I have 
> handy.  So to answer your basic question, it stayed around for quite a 
> while.

Just what I wanted; many thanks.  And I couldn't remember what SysV said, 
but I did know that they changed it.

-- Dave

[TUHS] Re: When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?

[Greg A. Woods]

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At Wed, 10 Jul 2024 21:53:54 -0400, Henry Bent <henry.r.bent@gmail.com> wrote:
Subject: [TUHS] Re: When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?
>
> Looks like on the BSD side it disappeared between 4.3 Tahoe and Reno.  It's
> in research through v10.  It's in SVR2; SVR4 modifies it to say "An unusual
> calendar is printed for September 1752."  I don't seem to have manpages
> with either of the SVR3 source distributions that I have handy.  So to
> answer your basic question, it stayed around for quite a while.

System V Release 3.2 MRD says the same thing as SVR4:

            An unusual calendar is printed for September 1752.  That is
            the month 11 days were skipped to make up for lack of leap
            year adjustments.  To see this calendar, type: "cal 9 1752"

The "BUGS" section remains the same as it was in 7th Edition.

In the CSRG SCCS files cal(1) was "updated" after the 4.3BSD release
with this comment:

src/usr.bin/cal/SCCS/s.cal.1
	D 6.3 89/09/28 14:20:22 bostic 5 4      00042/00023/00009
	MRs:
	COMMENTS:
	new version from Kim Letkeman (mitel!spock!kim@uunet.UU.NET)

The code was also updated at the same time:

src/usr.bin/cal/SCCS/s.cal.c
	D 4.5 89/09/28 14:20:24 bostic 5 4      00222/00159/00043
	MRs:
	COMMENTS:
	new version from Kim Letkeman (mitel!spock!kim@uunet.UU.NET)

This is of course a complete rewrite to give UCB the copyright.

--
					Greg A. Woods <gwoods@acm.org>

Kelowna, BC     +1 250 762-7675           RoboHack <woods@robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>     Avoncote Farms <woods@avoncote.ca>

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[TUHS] Re: When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?

[Marc Donner]

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My instance of cal (MacOS 14.5) has this in the man page:

     -s country_code

             Assume the switch from Julian to Gregorian Calendar at the date

             associated with the country_code.  If not specified, ncal tries

             to guess the switch date from the local environment or falls
back

             to September 2, 1752.  This was when Great Britain and her

             colonies switched to the Gregorian Calendar.

Note that the switch to the Gregorian calendar happened at different times
in different countries.  In Catholic-dominated countries it happened in
October of 1582.  The English-speaking world, being Protestant-dominated,
waited until September of 1752 to adopt it.
=====
nygeek.net
mindthegapdialogs.com/home <https://www.mindthegapdialogs.com/home>


On Wed, Jul 10, 2024 at 9:25 PM Dave Horsfall <dave@horsfall.org> wrote:

> The manpage for "cal" used to have the comment "Try September 1752" (and
> yes, I know why); it's no longer there, so when did it disappear?  The
> SysV fun police?
>
> I remember it in Ed5 and Ed6, but can't remember when I last saw it.
>
> Thanks.
>
> -- Dave
>

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[TUHS] Re: When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?

[Paul Winalski]

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On Sun, Jul 14, 2024 at 5:25 PM Marc Donner <marc.donner@gmail.com> wrote:

> Note that the switch to the Gregorian calendar happened at different times
> in different countries.  In Catholic-dominated countries it happened in
> October of 1582.  The English-speaking world, being Protestant-dominated,
> waited until September of 1752 to adopt it.
>
> And Russia didn't adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1918.  IIRC the
Eastern Orthodox churches still use the Julian calendar for scheduling
ecclesiastical events such as the date of Easter.

-Paul W.

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[TUHS] Re: When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?

[Marc Donner]

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To be turbo pedantic, Russia adopted a different calendar in 1918.
Gregorian and Russian calendars will diverge in 4000 CE.
=====
nygeek.net
mindthegapdialogs.com/home <https://www.mindthegapdialogs.com/home>


On Mon, Jul 15, 2024 at 10:00 AM Paul Winalski <paul.winalski@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Sun, Jul 14, 2024 at 5:25 PM Marc Donner <marc.donner@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Note that the switch to the Gregorian calendar happened at different
>> times in different countries.  In Catholic-dominated countries it happened
>> in October of 1582.  The English-speaking world, being
>> Protestant-dominated, waited until September of 1752 to adopt it.
>>
>> And Russia didn't adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1918.  IIRC the
> Eastern Orthodox churches still use the Julian calendar for scheduling
> ecclesiastical events such as the date of Easter.
>
> -Paul W.
>

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[TUHS] Re: When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?

[Phil Budne]

Rats!  There doesn't seem to be a file in the TZ Database for me to
set display to "Orthodox/Eastern"!  Hard to believe Olson didn't
consider it!

[TUHS] Re: When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?

[Greg A. Woods]

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At Sun, 14 Jul 2024 17:15:53 -0400, Marc Donner <marc.donner@gmail.com> wrote:
Subject: [TUHS] Re: When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?
>
> My instance of cal (MacOS 14.5) has this in the man page:
>
>      -s country_code
>
>              Assume the switch from Julian to Gregorian Calendar at the date
>              associated with the country_code.  If not specified, ncal tries
>              to guess the switch date from the local environment or falls back
>              to September 2, 1752.  This was when Great Britain and her
>              colonies switched to the Gregorian Calendar.

That's 'ncal' from FreeBSD, which is an entirely "new" implementation
written by Wolfgang Helbig:

	commit 0cb2e609d9c2f0ceaf730a57ac5c11580058e7f4
	Author: Wolfgang Helbig <helbig@FreeBSD.org>
	Date:   Mon Dec 15 20:35:22 1997 +0000

	    Add new command ncal.

> Note that the switch to the Gregorian calendar happened at different times
> in different countries.  In Catholic-dominated countries it happened in
> October of 1582.  The English-speaking world, being Protestant-dominated,
> waited until September of 1752 to adopt it.

Indeed!

--
					Greg A. Woods <gwoods@acm.org>

Kelowna, BC     +1 250 762-7675           RoboHack <woods@robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>     Avoncote Farms <woods@avoncote.ca>

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[TUHS] Re: When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?

[Ken Thompson]

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it is worse than "per country",
alaska changed when the u.s.
bought it from russia.


On Mon, Jul 15, 2024 at 10:45 AM Greg A. Woods <woods@robohack.ca> wrote:

> At Sun, 14 Jul 2024 17:15:53 -0400, Marc Donner <marc.donner@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> Subject: [TUHS] Re: When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?
> >
> > My instance of cal (MacOS 14.5) has this in the man page:
> >
> >      -s country_code
> >
> >              Assume the switch from Julian to Gregorian Calendar at the
> date
> >              associated with the country_code.  If not specified, ncal
> tries
> >              to guess the switch date from the local environment or
> falls back
> >              to September 2, 1752.  This was when Great Britain and her
> >              colonies switched to the Gregorian Calendar.
>
> That's 'ncal' from FreeBSD, which is an entirely "new" implementation
> written by Wolfgang Helbig:
>
>         commit 0cb2e609d9c2f0ceaf730a57ac5c11580058e7f4
>         Author: Wolfgang Helbig <helbig@FreeBSD.org>
>         Date:   Mon Dec 15 20:35:22 1997 +0000
>
>             Add new command ncal.
>
> > Note that the switch to the Gregorian calendar happened at different
> times
> > in different countries.  In Catholic-dominated countries it happened in
> > October of 1582.  The English-speaking world, being Protestant-dominated,
> > waited until September of 1752 to adopt it.
>
> Indeed!
>
> --
>                                         Greg A. Woods <gwoods@acm.org>
>
> Kelowna, BC     +1 250 762-7675           RoboHack <woods@robohack.ca>
> Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>     Avoncote Farms <woods@avoncote.ca>
>

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[TUHS] Re: When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?

[Ken Thompson]

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it is worse than "per country",
alaska changed when the u.s.
bought it from russia.

On Mon, Jul 15, 2024 at 12:03 PM Ken Thompson <kenbob@gmail.com> wrote:

> it is worse than "per country",
> alaska changed when the u.s.
> bought it from russia.
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 15, 2024 at 10:45 AM Greg A. Woods <woods@robohack.ca> wrote:
>
>> At Sun, 14 Jul 2024 17:15:53 -0400, Marc Donner <marc.donner@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> Subject: [TUHS] Re: When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?
>> >
>> > My instance of cal (MacOS 14.5) has this in the man page:
>> >
>> >      -s country_code
>> >
>> >              Assume the switch from Julian to Gregorian Calendar at the
>> date
>> >              associated with the country_code.  If not specified, ncal
>> tries
>> >              to guess the switch date from the local environment or
>> falls back
>> >              to September 2, 1752.  This was when Great Britain and her
>> >              colonies switched to the Gregorian Calendar.
>>
>> That's 'ncal' from FreeBSD, which is an entirely "new" implementation
>> written by Wolfgang Helbig:
>>
>>         commit 0cb2e609d9c2f0ceaf730a57ac5c11580058e7f4
>>         Author: Wolfgang Helbig <helbig@FreeBSD.org>
>>         Date:   Mon Dec 15 20:35:22 1997 +0000
>>
>>             Add new command ncal.
>>
>> > Note that the switch to the Gregorian calendar happened at different
>> times
>> > in different countries.  In Catholic-dominated countries it happened in
>> > October of 1582.  The English-speaking world, being
>> Protestant-dominated,
>> > waited until September of 1752 to adopt it.
>>
>> Indeed!
>>
>> --
>>                                         Greg A. Woods <gwoods@acm.org>
>>
>> Kelowna, BC     +1 250 762-7675           RoboHack <woods@robohack.ca>
>> Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>     Avoncote Farms <woods@avoncote.ca>
>>
>

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[TUHS] Re: When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?

[Jaap Akkerhuis via TUHS]

> On 15 Jul 2024, at 21:04, Ken Thompson <kenbob@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> it is worse than "per country",
> alaska changed when the u.s.
> bought it from russia.

Also note that the ISO country codes standard is from 1974.  I guess
that is why the FreeBSD ncal states that

	"The assignment of Julian–Gregorian switching dates to
	country codes is historically naive for many countries."

What we call countries nowadays has changed over the years (and
centuries).

	jaap

[TUHS] Re: When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?

[Marc Donner]

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Yeah, but if you do that you have to treat the places acquired in the
Louisiana Purchase differently because they switched in 1582.  And Puerto
Rico.  Bleh.
=====
nygeek.net
mindthegapdialogs.com/home <https://www.mindthegapdialogs.com/home>


On Mon, Jul 15, 2024 at 3:04 PM Ken Thompson <kenbob@gmail.com> wrote:

> it is worse than "per country",
> alaska changed when the u.s.
> bought it from russia.
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 15, 2024 at 10:45 AM Greg A. Woods <woods@robohack.ca> wrote:
>
>> At Sun, 14 Jul 2024 17:15:53 -0400, Marc Donner <marc.donner@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> Subject: [TUHS] Re: When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?
>> >
>> > My instance of cal (MacOS 14.5) has this in the man page:
>> >
>> >      -s country_code
>> >
>> >              Assume the switch from Julian to Gregorian Calendar at the
>> date
>> >              associated with the country_code.  If not specified, ncal
>> tries
>> >              to guess the switch date from the local environment or
>> falls back
>> >              to September 2, 1752.  This was when Great Britain and her
>> >              colonies switched to the Gregorian Calendar.
>>
>> That's 'ncal' from FreeBSD, which is an entirely "new" implementation
>> written by Wolfgang Helbig:
>>
>>         commit 0cb2e609d9c2f0ceaf730a57ac5c11580058e7f4
>>         Author: Wolfgang Helbig <helbig@FreeBSD.org>
>>         Date:   Mon Dec 15 20:35:22 1997 +0000
>>
>>             Add new command ncal.
>>
>> > Note that the switch to the Gregorian calendar happened at different
>> times
>> > in different countries.  In Catholic-dominated countries it happened in
>> > October of 1582.  The English-speaking world, being
>> Protestant-dominated,
>> > waited until September of 1752 to adopt it.
>>
>> Indeed!
>>
>> --
>>                                         Greg A. Woods <gwoods@acm.org>
>>
>> Kelowna, BC     +1 250 762-7675           RoboHack <woods@robohack.ca>
>> Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>     Avoncote Farms <woods@avoncote.ca>
>>
>

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[TUHS] Re: When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?

[Paul Winalski]

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The whole Julian -> Gregorian calendar conversion thing must be a real mess
for historians using contemporary date references.

-Paul W.

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[TUHS] Re: When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?

[Rudi Blom]

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Just had a quick look at 'man cat' on Uixes I've got 'at hand'. Just a 'cut
and past' of the relevant parts.

SCO UNIX 3.2V4.2

 Limitations

    Note that ``cal 84'' refers to the year 84, not 1984.

    The calendar produced is the Gregorian calendar from September 14 1752
    onward. Dates up to and including September 2 1752 use the Julian calen-
    dar.  (England and her colonies switched from the Julian to the
Gregorian
    calendar in September 1752, at which time eleven days were excised from
    the year.  To see the result of this switch, try cal 9 1752.)


Digital UNIX 4.0g

DESCRIPTION

  The cal command writes to standard output a Gregorian calendar for the
  specified year or month.

  For historical reasons, the cal command's Gregorian calendar is
discontinu-
  ous. The display for September 1752 (cal 9 1752) jumps from Wednesday the
  2nd to Thursday the 14th.

-- 
The more I learn the better I understand I know nothing.

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[TUHS] When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?

[Douglas McIlroy]

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> Yeah, but if you do that you have to treat the places
> acquired in the Louisiana Purchase differently because
> they switched in 1582.  And Puerto Rico.  Bleh.

Then there are all the German city states. And the
shifting borders of Poland. (cal -s country) is a mighty
low-res "solution" to the Julian/Gregorian problem.

Doug

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[TUHS] Re: When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?

[markus schnalke]

Hoi.

[2024-07-15 15:52] Douglas McIlroy <douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu>
>
> > Yeah, but if you do that you have to treat the places
> > acquired in the Louisiana Purchase differently because
> > they switched in 1582.  And Puerto Rico.  Bleh.
> 
> Then there are all the German city states. And the
> shifting borders of Poland. (cal -s country) is a mighty
> low-res "solution" to the Julian/Gregorian problem.

Several of these small entities, adopting the Gregorian calendar at
different times, you can see in this lenghty list:
	https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorianischer_Kalender#%C3%9Cbernahme_des_gregorianischen_Kalenders
(in German)


meillo

[TUHS] Re: When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?

[Steffen Nurpmeso]

markus schnalke wrote in
 <1sTc9e-0hh-00@marmaro.de>:
 |[2024-07-15 15:52] Douglas McIlroy <douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu>
 |>
 |>> Yeah, but if you do that you have to treat the places
 |>> acquired in the Louisiana Purchase differently because
 |>> they switched in 1582.  And Puerto Rico.  Bleh.
 |> 
 |> Then there are all the German city states. And the
 |> shifting borders of Poland. (cal -s country) is a mighty
 |> low-res "solution" to the Julian/Gregorian problem.
 |
 |Several of these small entities, adopting the Gregorian calendar at
 |different times, you can see in this lenghty list:
 | https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorianischer_Kalender#%C3%9Cbernahme_de\
 | s_gregorianischen_Kalenders
 |(in German)

But mostly is Katholischer Teil (Corpus Catholicorum) early (a
year late) / Evangelischer Teil (Corpus Evangelicorum) of the
Heiliges Römisches Reich (holy roman empire) später (18.2. ->
1.3.1700).  I would say, dependent on where you are, saying goes
for the former or the latter to this very day.  Aka i think
i recall that posted to a similar thread in the past, quoting an
article from the german computer magazine c't 15/1997, back from
when i still gave (lots of diversely spread) money to german
journalists; that i just pasted documentation comments, and that
included (it included Gaius Julius Caesar back then i think)

  * Whereas (parts of \ldots) Germany, for example, adopted it in 1700 (i think),
  * Great Britain did so in 1752;
  * many countries adopted it in between 1912 and 1974, on the other hand.

and

  * Furthermore, DateTime describes itself as a set of date algorithms,
  * which are influenced by Timezone (and sometimes Locale) objects.
  * This implies that we don't know much of the country or region;
  * the timezone "Europe/Berlin", for example,
  * applies to all of Germany \e today,
  * which cannot be compared to the bunch of principalities which existed in the
  * year 1700!

Now again, what a pity.

I think it is remarkable as traditionally we kept it "holding on
the inside", ie working ourselves out with all the little states,
borders, taxes, etc., with a little bit of swinging and such
dependent on "good king / bad king" time passages.  Except for
maybe the crusades (though good kings died before reaching the
holy land imho), but even those came to an end at times.  Bring
the boys back home!  (Which rhymes to bring the boys' backbone, in
respect to the "traditional german burial" Mos Teutonicus.  Hihi.)

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)

[TUHS] Re: When did "man cal" lose the comment about 1752?

[segaloco via TUHS]

On Tuesday, July 16th, 2024 at 1:22 PM, Steffen Nurpmeso <steffen@sdaoden.eu> wrote:

> markus schnalke wrote in
> 1sTc9e-0hh-00@marmaro.de:
> 
> |[2024-07-15 15:52] Douglas McIlroy douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu
> 
> |>
> 
> |>> Yeah, but if you do that you have to treat the places
> 
> |>> acquired in the Louisiana Purchase differently because
> 
> |>> they switched in 1582. And Puerto Rico. Bleh.
> 
> |>
> 
> |> Then there are all the German city states. And the
> 
> |> shifting borders of Poland. (cal -s country) is a mighty
> 
> |> low-res "solution" to the Julian/Gregorian problem.
> 
> |
> |Several of these small entities, adopting the Gregorian calendar at
> |different times, you can see in this lenghty list:
> | https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorianischer_Kalender#Übernahme_de\\
> | s_gregorianischen_Kalenders
> |(in German)
> 
> But mostly is Katholischer Teil (Corpus Catholicorum) early (a
> year late) / Evangelischer Teil (Corpus Evangelicorum) of the
> Heiliges Römisches Reich (holy roman empire) später (18.2. ->
> 
> 1.3.1700). I would say, dependent on where you are, saying goes
> for the former or the latter to this very day. Aka i think
> i recall that posted to a similar thread in the past, quoting an
> article from the german computer magazine c't 15/1997, back from
> when i still gave (lots of diversely spread) money to german
> journalists; that i just pasted documentation comments, and that
> included (it included Gaius Julius Caesar back then i think)
> 
> * Whereas (parts of \ldots) Germany, for example, adopted it in 1700 (i think),
> * Great Britain did so in 1752;
> * many countries adopted it in between 1912 and 1974, on the other hand.
> 
> and
> 
> * Furthermore, DateTime describes itself as a set of date algorithms,
> * which are influenced by Timezone (and sometimes Locale) objects.
> * This implies that we don't know much of the country or region;
> * the timezone "Europe/Berlin", for example,
> * applies to all of Germany \e today,
> * which cannot be compared to the bunch of principalities which existed in the
> * year 1700!
> 
> Now again, what a pity.
> 
> I think it is remarkable as traditionally we kept it "holding on
> the inside", ie working ourselves out with all the little states,
> borders, taxes, etc., with a little bit of swinging and such
> dependent on "good king / bad king" time passages. Except for
> maybe the crusades (though good kings died before reaching the
> holy land imho), but even those came to an end at times. Bring
> the boys back home! (Which rhymes to bring the boys' backbone, in
> respect to the "traditional german burial" Mos Teutonicus. Hihi.)
> 
> --steffen
> |
> |Der Kragenbaer, The moon bear,
> |der holt sich munter he cheerfully and one by one
> |einen nach dem anderen runter wa.ks himself off
> |(By Robert Gernhardt)

Well and I would have to wonder how much the average person at the time was really tuned in with the calendars, years, etc.  The church with their meticulous record keeping would've cared, as well as scientific circles (whose lines with the church were much blurrier then), but your average peasant in the field probably didn't care one way or another, so it seems like adoption of calendars at the time would've had a lot more to do with political/religious affiliation than any amount of impact on the life of an average subject.

All that to say, unlike today's modern interconnected global community, back then it was probably fine to drag your feet on moving to some new calendar because most folks weren't looking that granularly at the calendar, they were looking at the sun, moon, and stars.  Of course I wasn't there, so this is all postulation, and certainly adrift from the original question so I'll resist further musings on German calendar adoption.

To tie it back, has anyone experience with cal(1) being retooled for non-western calendars, and if so, if similar problems have arisen?  One country I could see being troublesome to target cal(1) for is Japan, their traditional concept of a year consists of two values, one being which emperor was on the throne and the other being the number of years since the ascension.  In conventional date writing, they tend to only write the latter, mentioning the empire in the greater context to give a point of reference sure, but as a pointed example, the date stamps in the headers of several Japanese video games published in the 80s instead have a year in the 60s because it was 60 or so years after the ascension of Hirohito marking the Showa period.

- Matt G.