[Info-vax] Y3K for PDP-11 Operating Systems

[Richard B. Gilbert]

On 5/4/2011 9:01 AM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> In article<H9mdnUTgT5LYfF3QnZ2dnUVZ_uOdnZ2d at giganews.com>,
> 	"Richard B. Gilbert"<rgilbert88 at comcast.net>  writes:
>> On 5/3/2011 8:07 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>> In article<7d287cc3-4605-49a0-826e-fb92fc14e98d at j28g2000vbp.googlegroups.com>,
>>> 	onedbguru<onedbguru at yahoo.com>   writes:
>>>> On May 3, 2:39 pm, Henry Crun<m... at rechtman.com>   wrote:
>>>>> On 03/05/11 20:51, Bob Koehler wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>     >Bob Koehler wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>>> In article<bdd4fd3d-bb52-43fb-ad9c-746b901f4... at gu8g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>, jjh<jjhu... at gmail.com>     writes:
>>>>>
>>>>>>>> To make sure I understand, y3K =3D 3000, it is 2011 now...um that is 989
>>>>>>>> years from now...or roughly  12.5 lifetimes....I seriously don't think
>>>>>>>> that anyone in the year 3000 will want to know anything about DEC hw
>>>>>>>> or sw.
>>>>>
>>>>>>> You obviously have not read the historical documents.
>>>>>
>>>>>> I am curious, I have not read the historical documents.
>>>>>> Can you please post a link?
>>>>>
>>>>>> As for Y3K for RT-11, since the date is presently managed
>>>>>> up to 2099 as of V05.07 of RT-11, dates starting in 2100
>>>>>> become the next problem.  And since adding support only
>>>>>> for an additional 128 years seems like a complete waste of
>>>>>> time, then 3000 CE was chosen as the next minimum step.
>>>>>> In practice, at least an additional 4000 years would probably
>>>>>> be added, more than enough to handle dates until the rules
>>>>>> for the CE (Commercial Events, Common Era, Christian Era
>>>>>> or Gregorian - all are identical and have a 400 year cycle)
>>>>>> Calendar requires a rule change to handle years which are
>>>>>> less than the current 365.2418 days.
>>>>>
>>>>>> So Y3K is really just Y2.1K if that makes a difference.
>>>>>
>>>>> IIRC there was an article by someone from DEC who promised that RSTS would be
>>>>> patched to accept five-digit years before the year 9999. However I doubt that
>>>>> current versions would be supported until then...
>>>>>
>>>> question... who cares??? I can almost guarantee that none of us will
>>>> be here in 2099... and by that time you might be using neural-net
>>>> technology that will make the PDP look like a TRS80.
>>>
>>> Hey, just what xfdo you think was wrong with the TRS80?
>>>
>>
>> Other than primitive hardware and primitive software?  It was a good
>> machine in its day but its day is LONG GONE!
>>
>
> Now that's funny, here.  Just how is the Z80 more primitve than the PDP-11?
> And software?  At least 5 different OSes.  Wide language support.  Many
> commercial applications.
>
> And, at this point it is probably debatable which one between the TRS80
> and PDP-11 has more users on both real hardware and emulators.  I have
> quite a bit of both.
>
> bill
>

I disposed of my "TRASH 80" and replaced it with a used Rainbow 100. 
The lack of a few milligrams of gold plating made the TRASH 80 a 
nightmare.  Tin oxidizes and did so on critical connectors!