My senior project was to create a circuit that generated and stored the current date for use as a desktop display. I initially wanted to design an entire clock with date display, but changed my mind after discussing the project difficulty with Professor Krupczak. The project interested me, because I constantly need to put the date on items and dislike using my watch to get the date because it can be inconvenient. I wanted a way of displaying the date and time simultaneously on the user's desktop.

The design I undertook was the central portion of the larger project I first proposed. The initial step would have been to design or acquire a clock circuit for time generation. The final step would have been to develop a display for the system. This central portion interested me because it presented unique problems of how to set the date, how to deal with Year 2000 (Y2K), and how to deal with leap years.

The problems associated with Year 2000 are receiving a lot of media attention right now. As a designer, an engineer, and a computer programmer, I am very aware some analysts predict a catastrophe when every computerized system fails. As a computer programmer, I view those predictions to be as likely to come true as predictions that the earth will end in 1984. 1 am also aware that Year 2000 does pose some serious problems for certain businesses. One of my tasks in this project was to make sure that my circuit was a viable method for date processing well beyond Year 2000.