Is that a year 2000 issue?
No. THIS is a Year 2000 issue.
Intel & Microsoft don't seem able to agree on how to treat the Real Time Clock. Duh.
According to Intel:
<http://support.intel.com/support/year2000/definition.htm>
---begin quote---
"The only proper method of accessing the date in systems with Intel
motherboards is indirectly from the Real Time Clock (RTC) via the
BIOS. The BIOS in Intel motherboards and baseboards contain a century
checking and maintenance feature that checks the least two significant
digits of the year stored in the RTC during each BIOS request (INT
1Ah) to read the date and if less than '80'(i.e. 1980 is the first
year supported by the PC), updates the century byte to '20'. This
feature enables operating systems and applications using the date/
time services to reliably manipulate the year as a four-digit value."
---end quote---
Microsoft states:
<http://microsoft.com/technet/topics/year2k/product/nt4rtc.htm>:
(This link was operational Friday morning - when checked Sunday, it had been removed by Microsoft.)
---begin quote---
"Every PC supported by Windows NT 4.0 has a calendar clock built-in.
It is generally built from CMOS technology so it can run off a low
power battery when the main computer power is turned off. The date
and time are kept in the Real Time Clock memory and updated by the
chip typically every second.
"When Windows NT needs to read or write to the Real Time Clock, it
accesses the Real Time Clock memory directly. It does not use the
system bios code to deal with the Real Time Clock. Windows NT reads
the Real Time Clock at:
1) Boot time and,
2) When a time service asks for the time.
"Since the location for the century is not standard among the Real
Time Clocks, Windows NT may not successfully be able to secure the
century information. Windows NT must be able to find either 19 or
20 as the century in order for the personal computer to qualify
for the Designed for Windows NT logo. Anytime Windows NT reads the
year and the year is greater than or equal to 1900 and less than
1920, 100 will be added to the year."
---end quote---
So, Intel "Year 2000 Capable" relies on the software using the BIOS to access the RTC. Windows NT, on the other hand, positively bypasses the BIOS!
Microsoft promises they'll work it out by the year 2000... Well, 1902 at the very latest.
Ian Bruce
New York, NY |
