Re: Apple IIGS to last another 39 years

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

Supertimer <supertimer@aol.com> wrote:

> That's right folks, the Apple IIGS' equivalent of the Y2K
> bug is coming.  In 39 years.  After that, the IIGS is
> history (mid 20th century...1940 history to be precise).
> 
> Can GS/OS or the Toolbox be patched to change this
> rollover?

At a minimum, it would be necessary to modify the Miscellaneous Toolset
routines that provide access to the clock.  There are a wide range of
other problems, however.

The IIgs clock is based on the same design as early Macs: a 32-bit
counter which is incremented every second.  The software defines a value
of zero to be 00:00:00 1 January 1904.  It expires some time in 2040,
which is why Apple picked the 1940 to 2040 range.

There are no built-in routines to access the clock in this form, only as
a text string or a record-based format, which returns the year in a
byte, as BCD, which limits it to the range 0-99.

HyperCard IIgs has a routine (also ported into System 6.0.1) which
converts the date/time into various formats, including the 32-bit
seconds rendition.