Timers in swing

Question

I encountered the following problem when using a Swing timer: it works fine when I use a delay time of 800, but the program exits without apparently doing anything when using delays close to 1000 or more. The program is as follows:
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
class Traffic extends JFrame{
Timer timer;
Traffic(){
ActionListener a = new ActionListener (){
public void actionPerformed (ActionEvent e){
System.out.println("Hello World");
timer = new Timer(1800, a);
timer.start();
public static void main (String [] args)
new Traffic();
As stated with 1800 as the timer delay it does not work, with 800 it works fine.
As a beginner in java I would really like to know what I am doing wrong.
Thank you, Gert

Answer 1

Yes, it is exactly the code as I put it in. In fact I did it under Windows XP yesterday, on two different computers, and this morning I compiled it under Linux, with exactly the same result. I tried to leave out the Jframe as well, but then the program stops immediately, whereas when I put it in, it waits a while before stopping. If I try to debug it with jdb, and do
"run Traffic", I get the message "exit to system" , and the debugger stops.