Jerome Fine replies:
 In addition, some of the code in RT-11 in the monitor
and elsewhere
rejects a date value with a year value of zero - meaning that 1972 is
considered invalid by that code. 
This was fixed in RT-11 5.7, it now consistently handles 1972 through
2099, inclusive.
 the DATE/TIME hardware clock on the third party board.
Any idea
how the 11/93 does the 1999 transition with the now Y2K compliant
firmware update? 
Look in the NL.MAC source code - the SETUP.SAV window range was
chosen identically:
.sbttl  .           Convert clock date to RT-11 format.
; Convert the BCD date read from the clock to the standard RT-11 format:
;
;                   RT-11 extended date word (RT-11 V5.5ff)
;
;         15  14  13  12  11  10  9   8 | 7   6   5   4   3   2   1   0
;       +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
;       |yr xtn |     month     |        day        |     year-1972     |
;       +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
;         2 bits      4 bits            5 bits               5 bits
;
;
; To support the year extension, clock years of 72..99 can be considered to
; be in the 1900s (since the RT-11 base year of 1972) and years of 00..71 can
; be considered to be in the 2000s.
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