>> >In addition, some of the code in RT-11 in the monitor and elsewhere
>> >rejects a date value with a year value of zero - meaning that 1972 is
>> >considered invalid by that code.
>> This was fixed in RT-11 5.7, it now consistently handles 1972 through
>> 2099, inclusive.
>I am confused here just a little bit. And I am not taking exception to
>what was done in V5.7 - in fact, I believe that the decisions which were
>made were correct. However, if "this was fixed in RT-11 V5.7" is
>what I think the word "fixed" means, then not allowing the command:
>"DATE 01-Jan-72"
>in all versions of RT-11 which did allow the command "DATE 01-Jan-73"
>means that these previous versions had a "bug". If a "bug" is the correct
>interpretation for not allowing a year of 1972, I wonder why the developers
>of RT-11 never corrected that aspect in all the years of RT-11 development?
It wasn't a very serious bug, unless you had files with datestamps
from 1972 on them. In my experience, you're only likely to see pre-1974
datestamps in RT-11 if the files were imported from, say, an old DOS-11
tape.
>> >the DATE/TIME hardware clock on the third party board. Any idea
>> >how the 11/93 does the 1999 transition with the now Y2K compliant
>> >firmware update?
>> Look in the NL.MAC source code - the SETUP.SAV window range was
>> chosen identically:
>I stated my question incorrectly. I know how the DATE value is divided
>in the different 4 fields. What I was specifically wondering about was how
>DATE/TIME values in the 11/93 were handled before the firmware on the
>11/93 was made Y2K compliant as what happens now - if indeed anything
>is different? I have seen references to the upgrade needed by the 11/93
>firmware to make it Y2K compliant. What I am curious about is how the
>Y2K compliant firmware for the 11/93 handles the year and if that was
>any different before the 11/93 firmware was made Y2K compliant.
Technically, the "11/93 TOY clock firmware fix" wasn't to fix a Y2K
problem, it was there to fix a Y2000.164 problem. The actual problem
occured after 29-Feb-2000, which the TOY clock firmware regarded (at
boot time) as an illegal date and it set the TOY clock back to the
factory default date (1-Jan-1980, if I'm not mistaken.)
This was more of a boneheaded "2000 is not a leap year" mistake than
anything else.
Most (all?) other PDP-11 TOY clock modules don't attempt to do anything
particularly "smart" (here, simple is good, because the "smart" code
may do something "stupid" someday) with the date.
--
Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa_at_trailing-edge.com
Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/
7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917
Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927
Received on Mon Nov 15 1999 - 06:54:54 GMT