cbirds wrote: > zhmmy harper tapped out this message on 3/28/2003 7:59 AM > > >>Oh, and yes, I did have to reset my dates which had reverted to 1956. By >>the way, what is the significance of "1956"? > > > It's the WOZ's birthday... :-) >
No, I specifically know it *isn't* Woz's birthday: 'Steve Wozniak Born Aug. 11, 1950' from woz.org here's the scoop: <http://www.academ.com/info/macintosh/> "So why do different Macs reset to different dates? Most Macs reset to Aug 27th, 1956. As it turns out, this is the birthdate of one of the designers, Ray Montagne, who apparently designed the CUDA microcontroller. This chip controls the PRAM and ADB on many models. Peter Werner found that information on the Nov 95 MacUser Help folder. By the way, Steve Jobs was born in 1955, so the date is not his birthday. Other Macs reset to the default date - the date that the clock shows when the clock registers are filled with zeros. The date is Jan 1, 1904. Rick Holzgrafe tells why some Macs reset to that odd year - the question was "What is the default date if the clock contains all zeros?" His answer: It's midnight, Jan 1, 1904. This date was selected because the original Mac's clock (which counts in seconds) can encompass a period of about 136 years. Selecting 1904 as the start date means that the 136-year period covered by the clock (1904-2040) includes the birthdate of nearly every Mac user, and extends well past the expected lifetime of the Mac OS. It also means that the simplest rule for leap-years can be used (every fourth year has an extra day), which simplifies day and date calculations. They didn't choose the year 1900 because it was not a leap year, and so would have complicated matters." Note, this is true, that date (2040) is well past the expected lifetime of the Mac OS (as it shipped then). OSX, interestingly enough, will barf *sooner* than that since it is affected by the 2038 rollover date problem in Unix. (Since that's a 32-bit thing: 1-19-2038 is 2^31 seconds after 1-1-1970, 'time Zero' for Unix systems <http://www.gsp.com/2038/>. To see for yourself run the perl script <http://www.gsp.com/2038/test.pl> on that page under OSX. Note that time stops at 3:14:07, 1-19-2038, indicative of a unfixed system. 64-bit systems (rumored to be the big deal with OS X 10.3) don't have to worry until the year 292,471,208,677...for reference, that's 21,193,565,846 times the current estimated life span, so far, of the universe (13.8 billion years)...) -- Bruce Johnson University of Arizona College of Pharmacy Information Technology Group Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs -- PCI-PowerMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Sonnet & PowerLogix Upgrades - start at $169 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PCI-PowerMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/pci-powermacs.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive:<http://www.mail-archive.com/pci-powermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
