It's nearly that date again -- February 29th. This date occurs approximately once in every four years.
The µPD1990AC is a 14-pin Integrated Circuit (IC) within the Model T laptop which uses a 32.768 kHz quartz crystal to regulate the external Real Time Clock interrupt rate (ordinarily once in every 3.90625 mSec), and its various internal clock and calendar time-keeping chores. Calendar time-keeping within the µPD1990AC has two shortcomings. The first shortcoming is that the year is expressed in 2-digit format (i.e., century is ignored). The second shortcoming is that February 29 never is expressed (i.e., leap year is ignored). Consequently, tomorrow at exactly 00:00:00 (Model T time) on February 29, 2016 your Model T calendar will ignorantly leap forward by one day, and express the date as "Mar 1, 1916". Fear not. This small perturbation in the time-space continuum is correctable after-the-fact. At any time today, February 28, 2016, invoke BASIC, type the following statement, and then press ENTER. CLS:FORI%=0TO0STEP0:T$=TIME$:?@0,T$:IFT$="00:00:00"THENDATE$="02/29/16":BEEP :?"This is Leap day "DATE$ELSENEXT Wrapped 40-column on the Laptop screen, the statement looks like this. CLS:FORI%=0TO0STEP0:T$=TIME$:?@0,T$:IFT$ ="00:00:00"THENDATE$="02/29/16":BEEP:?"T his is Leap day "DATE$ELSENEXT Keeper of the Primordial Bit (mother of all bits), -= Ron Wiesen =-
