Re: tlug: Y2K

[Fredric Fredricson <fredric.fredriksson@example.com>]

I checked back on my notes and it seems like the
clock(8) program used to set the hardware clock
(don't confuse with clock(1)) in RH 4.1 and maybe
RH 4.2 contained a bug that made it fail to set
the year for 2000 and later correctly.

It might pay off to try to set the date with clock
and restart the computer.

The tricky part (this is from my memory so I may
be wrong on some details) is that it works with some
BIOSes and not with others. I don't remember the
details but the clock value in the RTC chip is
stored in BCD format and there was something 
wrong in the conversion from binary to BCD.

/Fredric

(The BCD (Binary Coded Decimal) means that the
 lower 4 bits is used for the first digit in a
 two digit decimal number and the last 4 bits 
 for the second. For some obscure reason IBM
 choose this format back in 1983 or so. Maybe
 the RTC chip (Motorola MC146818) could not
 handle binary. I don't know.)
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