[Coco] Y2k bug

[Gene Heskett]

On Saturday 04 March 2006 14:27, Chester Patterson wrote:
>12 or 13 years without firing up the old rig.
>Just did.
>OS9 Level 2 - How do I fix the date?
>It's hard coded for 19xx.
>I suppose the easiest is to change the "19" to "20"
>Which module? What offset?
>
Depending on what clock module hardware you might be using, there are 
some fixed clocks available on rtsi. I think theres a fixed one for the 
software clock too.  That will probably also contain the bootlist order 
bug fixes too IIRC.  That was in ed9 of the clocks from Eddie Kuhns, 
and the y2k fixes should have built on that.

>And my ST225 won't boot or even read. Pity, ALL kinds of fun stuff I
> had on there.

Can it be made to spin up by removing it from the case and giving one 
corner of it a heavy bump sideways with the bottom of your fist?  If 
so, it has 'stiction' where the heads are glueing themselves to the 
disk like the machinists Joes Blocks do.  You will want to find another 
drive that you can copy that one to, and get it setup.  Then hook the 
old 225 up again, start it, and copy it off. Stiction isn't normally 
fatal the first few dozen times but eventually will get worse until no 
amount of whacking will break it loose.  Don't hit in any direction 
except in the plane of the platters in it else you may cause a head 
crash which will total the drive in just a few minutes.

>Two of my three TEAC 5-1/4" are shot. Have to buy some.

>Do 3-1/2 720/1.44 floppies work OK? Aren't the tracks narrower?

Generally they are ok.  They are all 80 track DS drives, and unless you 
have a hacked for hi-density controller, you'll need to find some DD 
diskettes for them.  I've tried HD diskettes many times, but they often 
will refuse to even format, the magnetic coating is harder, and the 
drives will often switch themselves up to a 500kilobaud data rate with 
some refusing to read the HD diskette at all.

But that doesn't prevent you from using DD diskettes, and formatting 
them 35 track SS, in which case the coco can't tell the difference.

Finding DD diskettes, now thats a whole nother can of worms.  Often you 
have to resort to mail order.  Possibly someone here can furnish a url?

>Thanks.
>
>Costa Rica Chet

-- 
Cheers, Gene
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