Re: Pro/Venix and Y2K

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Header:	Message-ID: <365DA28D.5C541C8C@halcyon.com> Date: Thu, 26 Nov 1998 10:48:45 -0800 From: "David C. Jenner" <djenner@halcyon.com> Reply-To: djenner@halcyon.com MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Tim Shoppa <SHOPPA@trailing-edge.com> Cc: PUPS@MINNIE.CS.ADFA.OZ.AU Subject: Re: Pro/Venix and Y2K References: <981126115034.2a2004dc@trailing-edge.com> Sender: owner-pups@minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au Precedence: bulk
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Body:	There probably isn't much BSD lineage in Version 1 of Venix, but there is some in Version 2. Probably mostly in the form of the usual add-ons like VI. There's some confusion about this (at least in my mind), so any authoritative info would be interesting. First of all there's: "Venix/Pro" from Venturecom, which is definitely of AT&T lineage, probably V7/SysIII for V1 of Venix/Pro, and perhaps a bit of BSD stuff mixed in for V2 of Venix/Pro. This is what you find at Internet archives. Then there's: "Pro/Venix" from DEC, which is a repackaging of Venix/Pro. Again, there are Versions 1 and 2 of this. I have V1 and docs for V2, but no disks for V2. I'd really like to find a copy of the distribution of DEC Pro/Venix V2, if it's legal (and having the Ancient Unix license would seem to make it OK for at least the AT&T side). For Pro/Venix, V2, the manual entry for "clock(7) - time-of-day clock" is: /dev/clock refers to a time-of-day, battery-backed-up clock. This device node is provided primarily for the benefit of the date com- mand, which will read from it given the -l flag (usually done on system start-up), and write to it if a new date is set. ... struct clkbuf { int clk_sec; /* second (0-59) / int clk_min; / minute (0-59) / int clk_hour; / hour (0-23) / int clk_mday; / day of month (1-31) / int clk_mon; / month (0-11) / int clk_year; / year (00-99) / int clk_wday; / day of the week (Sunday = 0) / int clk_yday; / day of the year (0-365) / int clk_dst; / non-zero if daylight savings applies / }; So, it looks bad at least from the internal representation of the year. Since I don't have this version, I can't comment on exactly what happens. Dave Tim Shoppa wrote: > > The following exchange recently took place on comp.sys.dec.micro/ > vmsnet.pdp-11/alt.sys.pdp11. In it, I made the guess that PRO Venix > is based on 2.9BSD - does anyone know more details about its heritage? > > Donato B. Masaoy III wrote: > > > > Came into a Pro 380 and loaded Venix as a means of tyring out Unix. > > Noticed that at 2000 it sets itself back to 1970. Is there fix for this? > > Should I bother? > > The PRO 380 Time-Of-Year clock has two modes: > > 1. BCD mode, where the year is stored in two decimal digits. > 2. Binary mode, where the year is stored as at least 7 bits (more > likely 8 bits - it's been a couple of months since the changes > were implemented the fix in RT-11's PI.SYS, PIX.SYS, and > SETUP.SAV to make it Y2K compliant.) > > When in BCD mode, 31-Dec-99 rolls over into 1-Jan-00, and the > clock keeps accurately ticking. Venix evidently chokes on this > and doesn't interpret "00" as "2000". > > As Unix is incapable of representing times internally outside > the range 1970-2038, the obvious fix is to interpret BCD years > in the range 70-99 as being in the 1900's, and the BCD years > in the range 00-38 as in the 2000's. This is, for example, > how BSD2.11 interprets the two-digit 11/93 or 11/94 clock year. > > Of course, finding the sources to Pro 380 Venix to implement > the changes may be difficult. The PUPS archive has a version of 2.9BSD > patches for the Pro, and if you're lucky Venix may be close > enough that you can use the Pro-specific clock sources to patch > your kernel binary. In the 2.9BSD Pro patches, the clock > code is in "/sys-dev/prostuff.c", and begins: > > / These two fuctions handle the pro 300's clock > * This code is defunct at the end of the century. > * Will Unix still be here then?? > */ > > -- > Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa @ trailing-edge.com > Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ > 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 > Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927