Someone recently brought up the fact that microwaves will correctly choose when to convert user input into a proper display time (depending on what was entered). That individual was intrigued by the back-end and wanted to know how it worked. I really like to reverse engineer interesting features and systems so I thought it would be a fun exercise to work on today. If you want a small working demo along with the code, you can use/view it here.
I did basic input testing on my microwave and modeled it accordingly. So the way the process works is this:
The user enters up to four digits to fill the register completely (if desired).
The microwave parses the explicit minutes (first two digits if input is four integers).
The remaining seconds are then converted to minutes as well.
Any seconds remaining (less than 60), will be kept for the next step.
Finally, the time is displayed in its correct format for the user to see (feedback).
There is an edge case, however. If the user’s input reaches ninety-nine (99) minutes and the remaining seconds are greater than 60, the seconds remaining are kept without conversion. This is done so that the remaining time can be fully displayed for the user. Microwaves have many other standard features which make them very complex, but I hope that this explains how time input works.