We moved one of our computers up to 12-31-1999 11:55pm and then shut it down. Ten minutes later we brought it up again and the date was 1-4-1980. Now as far as I can see, when the time comes and assuming we have power and all, the bios will have to be reset to the correct date (1-1-2000) and then we carry on. Also one must be aware to do the same thing again on the A.M. of 2-29-2000, which our computer says does exist. We will change it to 3-1-2000 because we know better.

Now, other than "TD", is that pretty much it regarding "bios" problems?. We understand "executables" are another matter.

As far as potential "TD" glitches are concerned, it seems we could write a simple program to access the various clocks across the network, on power up, to verify that they were pretty much in sync.

Any corrections or other thoughts please?

Me

-- Floyd Baker (fbaker@wzrd.com), November 19, 1998

Answers

Floyd:

If you "Know better" about 2/29/2000, perhaps you could enlighten us on where in the rules to follow, you know better.

1) Leap years are any year divisible by 4 with no remainder.

2) Centuries are not leap years EXCEPT:

3) Every 4th century IS a leap year.

I submit to you that your computer might actually be correct in that there IS a 2/29/2000

respectfully, Chuck

(must be listening too much to the Star testimony!)

-- Chuck a Night Driver (rienzoo@en.com), November 19, 1998.

Well looks like I had the second and third rules backwards then. I don't do centuries too often. We probably would have gotten it right in the next year and a half but still, that's why I was asking the general question. For info I don't have, or have wrong. Thanks.

Any others on pc bios date changes?

Me.

-- Floyd Baker (fbaker@wzrd.com), November 19, 1998.

By Papal decree (Pope Gregory XIII) in 1582: "Every fourth year is a leap year except for centuries that are not evenly divisible by 400."

2100 would be the next non-leap-year century in the Gregorian calendar. The current leap-year rule is equivalent to stating 1 Gregorian year is 365.2425 days. The error is 3 days in 10,000 years.

FWIW: among my 8 Pentiums, after synchronizing all the clocks, about a week later they will be as much as 10 minutes apart. The slippage is not constant. I will be testing for other time/date keeping problems.

-- Jon (jonmiles@pacbell.net), November 19, 1998.

Y2K BIOS Testing - Utilities and Patches
http://www.mitre.org/research/cots/PATCH.html

Year 2000 Compliant PC Internal Clock and BIOS - How to Check
http://www.mitre.org/research/cots/COMPLIANT_BIOS.html

National Software Testing Labs YMark2000
http://www.nstl.com/html/nstl_y2k_main.html

PC Mag Year200 Resource Center
http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/special/y2k/index.html

Testing Your PC Hardware - Cade Metz Test Your PC Live Online Of 10,000 users who have already tested their PCs, 20 percent have found their PCs noncompliant.
http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/special/y2k/features/main/docs/348620.htm

Software Library: Y2K Utilities
http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/pctech/download/swcol.y2k.html

IBM's guide to testing/fixing PC's for Y2K
http://www.pc.ibm.com/year2000/faq.html

American Megatrends Y2K Site
http://www.ami.com/amibios/y2k_main.html

Award BIOS and Phoenix BIOS Y2K Site
http://www.award.com/tech/y2k.htm

Scope of Y2K crisis widens: Clock problem found
http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?980822.ehnty2k.htm

Compaq, Dell address Y2K real-time clock bug
http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?981010.ehy2krtc.htm

Even New PCs Have Y2K Bug
http://y2ktimebomb.com/Computech/Management/dwalk9840.htm

Updated software from several vendors is shining the year 2000 spotlight on the desktop.
http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/y2k/1098/05y2kdesk.html

Time Dilation or Time/Date-Keeping Problem
http://www.intranet.ca/~mike.echlin/bestif/index.htm

TD Test method and results
http://www.intranet.ca/~mike.echlin/bestif/tdpaper.htm

Y2k BIOS FAQs
http://www.survive-2000.com/links8.htm#BIOS

-- Jon (jonmiles@pacbell.net), November 19, 1998.

Surprise - computers aren't very good clocks. That is why most networking software has a synchronize option whereby you can set the clock on each PC as it boots into the network.

Personally, I never have had a PC that kept time as well as a common watch.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), November 20, 1998.

Thanks for getting me straight on the rules and all. Keeping the *exact* time wasn't too much of a worry but rather a date/time comparison between machines would be a check against a possible TD effect popping up on any individual machine. I don't do networks either so not aware of any already-being-done comparisons in my setup. I use a few pc's networked with win95 and win98. I don't know if they are syncing but I'll put a bad date on one and find out what happens.

Also, I take it that I should check again after a few power downs to see if the new date holds? Oh no... :-)

-- Floyd Baker (fbaker@wzrd.com), November 20, 1998.