Re: Y2K ProDOS 8 (2.0.3)

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Charlie wrote:

>At the time that ProDOS was written most software on the Apple II ran under
>DOS
>3.3 which has no support for date and time stamping.  It is possible that
>programs that ran under other systems (Apple III SOS, CP/M, Pascal, etc.) may
>have had a similarly bit challenged date system (I don't know enough about
>those systems to argue the point) but from what I've seen of Apple (the
>company) over the years, compatibility isn't high on their list of
>priorities.

Whatever the reasons for the original design choices (like trying to keep
date and time as independent 16-bit fields) or the consequences for
post-1999 systems, the fact remains that this date format was made
an externally visible interface for ProDOS, and so cannot be changed
now without either:  1) changing all applications that use the date
structure (a very unappealing choice), or 2) adding a _new_ date
interface to ProDOS which preserves some kind (Apple's kind?)
of compatibility for unchanged applications and adds a new date
interface for applications which can be changed to take advantage
of it.

Although the second alternative is appealing, it has the problem
that it is unlikely that many applications would actually exploit
it in the coming years.

I'm also unsure of how much free space is available for ProDOS
changes these days...

-michael

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