Y2K/Y10K for V5.03 of RT-11

Jerome Fine replies: This is my first design discussion proposal. Please note that it is VERY preliminary and VERY subject to change. Also, while the initial goal is for a Y2Y/Y10K V5.03 for RT-11, I VERY much have in mind V5.04x, V5.05, V5.06 AND most definitely V5.07 of RT-11. Finally, any additional bug fixes and other enhancements to all of the above versions should also be able to exist under the same design. In fact, probably the best way to be sure would be to first apply the design to V5.07 and only afterwards retrofit the changes to V5.03 of RT-11 along with all versions in-between. Since a public release of any changes to V5.07 (even for a hobby release - which is why the initial release will target ONLY V5.03 and it will be licensed ONLY to hobby users) seems unlikely to be in the cards for many years, perhaps many decades, let us be content that at least V5.03 is available. Having said the background, let's begin! (a) All changes will be compatible with all versions of RT-11 from V5.03 up to V5.07 (b) All changes will be implemented in a manner which allows ALL of the changes to be made inoperative via a simple SET command such as: SET NEWFIX OFF/ON/ALL in addition to individual changes being selected via: SET DATE [NO]Y2K SET DATE [NO]Y10K Anyone who likes a different expression other than "NEWFIX" that is 6 letters or less - please suggest. If there are no alternatives to (a) and (b) that are practical, then my next design discussion will be to specify the actual bits to be used. However, if there is no feedback indicating any interest, then I might just skip that stage and go right to the code along with a release of RT11FB and /or RT11XM based on the distributed V5.03 of RT-11. The monitors would be followed by DIR, PIP, IND MACRO, etc. The implications of (a) and (b) seem quite obvious, but I would appreciate some feedback. One implication is that one of the still available bits (out of two that remain) in the high order byte of SYSGEN (offset 372) probably needs to be used - or some other bit which is presently still available in one of the CONFIG words (that V5.03 already uses - since V5.07 uses additional CONFIG words) and which V5.07 does NOT already use. As for the reasons for (a) and (b), the primary advantage is that it should be possible to easily determine (when any bugs which appear - and they almost always do) if the bug is due to the modified code or the original code. If both (a) and (b) are not appropriate, then alternative suggestions would be appreciated. So long as Mentec allows only V5.03 to be used by hobby users, then I don't see another alternative that would allow all of the code to be compatible with all versions from V5.03 up to V5.07 of RT-11. Obviously if Mentec made V5.07 available to hobby users (which seems to be VERY UNLIKELY right now), then all of the bug fixes and enhancements could easily be made available to all users - with Mentec being free to sell V5.07 to those commercial users who wish to take advantage of the bug fixes and enhancements. In addition, with V5.07 already being Y2K compliant, the first priority would be bug fixes to V5.07 rather than taking the effort to make V5.03 Y2K/Y10K compliant. If anyone sees a flaw in the logic of this paragraph, please help me understand what it is. Another alternative would be for Mentec to at least allow V5.06 (released August 1992 - thus now more than 10 years old) for hobby use as opposed to V5.07 (released November 1998 - so now more than 4 years old). Since V5.06 is identical in its overall structure to V5.07, then anything done for V5.06 would also work on V5.07 of RT-11. But based on the length of time that an upgrade to the hobby license has been under discussion, I just can't see that it is likely to happen very soon. If this post is unable to generate any feedback, then I will probably proceed for a while on my own. There are a number of individuals who have asked for copies of the software as it becomes available. I have not yet arranged for a web site which will carry it, so based on the current lack of interest, it should be easy to just e-mail to the few people that want the files. Please e-mail me if you are one of those people. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine -- If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the 'at' with the four digits of the current year.