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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: asian1 on August 11, 2003, 07:28:43 PM
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Hello
I have idea about multiple calendar system for
Amiga One or Pegasos. I do not know if this idea
is possible.
The Real Time Clock Chip in PC / PowerPC follow
International standard (12 months, Gregorian).
In several countries they use different calendar
(lunar, year 4701 - Chinese, year 1424 - Moslem).
Is it possible to create ASIC / FPGA on a PCI
card that can function as Real Time Clock for
various Calendar system?
2nd question: I read rumor about the year 2046
(January 1st) as the end of Amiga calendar.
Is this true? Is there any calendar limit on
new AmigaOne / Pegasos BIOS?
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Roflmao! If The classic Amigas last untill 2046, all I can say is *WOW*!!!
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asian1 wrote:
2nd question: I read rumor about the year 2046
(January 1st) as the end of Amiga calendar.
Is this true?
It's actually Jan 19th (at 03:14:08 in the morning, fact fans), that you are thinking of. This is caused by programs using signed instead of unsigned longs (or the other way round, I forget which). This isn't the end of the Amiga calendar. The end of time, as the Amiga knows it, is actually 7th Feb 2114 06:28:15. I strongly advise you to get your nuclear bunker installed before that time happens.
There is a bit of reading about time limits, the Amiga and NTP on my website and/or in the Facts guide (under Y2K compatibility) - here (http://www.unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk/facts/guide/y2k.html)
The old Amiga White Paper is well worth reading, and (edit) a cached copy is available here (http://web.archive.org/web/19981203142814/www.amiga.com/092098-y2k.html)
Chris.
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Just to clarify, since the Amiga is based on a similar epoch system (http://www.amiga.com/archive/diary/developers/y2k.html) to UNIX, it should be little sweat to localize to a different calendar system. You'll still be bit at the same rollover point(s), of course, but that's no sweat to patch as the need arises.
The RTC clocks may be subject to certain limitations, but it's the OS's job to set them and interpret them - when a clock with a two-digit year rolls over, for instance, it's the OS's job to realize it's in the 21st (Gregorian) century, and thus at the appropriate point in the epoch (which turns out to be little trouble to extend, since hardware scales exponentially, while seconds tick on linearly... what was once a 'huge' number is now perhaps half a word from a DIMM?, or a miniscule fraction of the average minimum disk sector).
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While testing AROS, I noticed that it's calender only goes up to 2099... I became quite worried by this as AROS should be nearing release candidate version 1.0 by then :lol: