When I use my Frigidaire Gallery microwave oven my mind usually restricts the numbers I input to the normal digits allowed by a clock, such as 0 through 59. I used it this morning and meant to put in the right numbers but instead I pressed seven and zero. But instead of giving me an error, it went right ahead and started running, counting down from 70 seconds. HUH? I didn’t think it was supposed to do that!
So I thought about it for a bit and decided to try it with another invalid number. I pressed 1, 9, and 9 and hit the start. It started counting down from 99 instead of 59! That’s really weird. No problem at all, it just takes whatever you press. That’s really goofy, I thought. But still it doesn’t really matter as long as the microwave oven actually runs for two minutes and thirty-nine seconds, which is what I input. It just lets me decide that I want what I put in, without any prejudgments on my out-of-line input.
I have never tried this with any other microwave oven, probably because I just press the minute button twice for two minutes. My old microwave oven (I think it was a Daewoo) didn’t have a full number keypad, it had seconds, minutes and tens of minutes buttons. The one at work had buttons to heat a cup of coffee or cook a TV dinner; I never used the number buttons. Next time I’m over at someone’s house I’ll have to try to trick their microwave oven into taking some invalid numbers and see what happens.
When I had an old, lower wattage unit, 60 seconds wasnt enough to heat my coffee. Thats when I discovered this trick. 99 seconds was what was needed and only required 3 buttom strokes.