quote:Original post by reaction
who are you???

R

Sounds like a question someone from Tribes would say:

WHO ARE YOU TO MAKE SUCH A STATEMENT MR ANTAREUS?!!?
GEE I WAS IN 5150 ONCE THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING DOESN''T IT!

Since I must be literal: MS doesn''t give a damn about other operating systems you have, hopefully you know that. So, it doesn''t care if the other OSes ALSO change the BIOS time. They operate as if they are the only OS installed since that is how about 98% of their users are.

Thanks for the replies,

The system will work like this...

When the computer is manufactured the constant clock will be set to the correct (global, unadjusted) time.

The second clock will have an offset from the first; to set it to the correct (local) time.

The advantages will be that...

(1) any software that needs to know the exact and unaltered time, regardless of locale, they will use the constant clock, and will always be correct.

(2) any other software should use the second clock.

(3) any OS operations that require local time will use the second clock, but the OS developers will have cooperate and negotiate a flag to indicate DST (possibly also in the BIOS).
An alternative to this would be that the OS kernel jog the time for every operation (or possibly just at startup).

The constant clock would mean that whatever happens to the second clock, the correct time will always be derivable, in one way or another.

As far as I am aware, not a single PC, anywhere (except possibly miltary machines), can report the time with a n y degree of accuracy at all.

Please email your local PC mnfctrs.

R

With reference to this, I have halted downloads of AntiSmoke (previously ManillaPush) and ToDoList.

Please visit http://antismoke.org.uk for the official message.

Regards,
R

ToDoList | Wayout | ManillaPush | SendToSync

Also, the clocks should probably be 64 (128?) bit representations of seconds since a, yet to be decided, date a few hundred years in the past.

R

[edited by - reaction on October 31, 2003 11:22:35 AM]

This is a problem throughout things. If I take my computer to the US, I''ll have to set the time back by 5 hours at least. DST would have the exact safe effect as moving one timezone forward/backward, depending on the time of year.

That''s why I don''t think this is a BIOS problem - rather, it''s an OS problem. The OS shouldn''t be changing the clock to respond to DST; it should be tracking DST, along with its timezone information, internally.

Reporting it to the Linux development community could be the best start, as you''re almost guaranteed to get something done that way. Apple as well, as it''d be part of the Darwin kernel (I think). MS.. possibly. Not that they tend to give a damn about interopability with other OSes on the same machine.

BTW, your website gives the impression that you''re overreacting horribly. I can''t even find out what your software does, let alone why this problem would affect it.

Richard "Superpig" Fine
- saving pigs from untimely fates, and when he''s not doing that, runs The Binary Refinery.
Enginuity1 | Enginuity2 | Enginuity3 | Enginuity4 | Enginuity5
ry. .ibu cy. .y''ybu. .abu ry. dy. "sy. .ubu py. .ebu ry. py. .ibu gy." fy. .ibu ny. .ebu
"Don''t document your code; code your documentation." -me

one word... optimization

R

optionalreaction.net 70-30

quote:Original post by reaction
It's not logical for Windows to change the system clock, as other OS'es will not know the clock has been adjusted, and may repeat the operation.

Windows always assumed it was the one and only operating system on your machine.

Several C time functions have a 'timezone' parameter you can use (or will implicitely use the TZ environment variable). That's how Unix systems (normally) adjust for daylight saving time - the internal clock itself should not be modified.

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[edited by - Fruny on October 31, 2003 3:09:47 PM]

quote:
the internal clock itself should not be modified.

I agree, although optimisation would probably have been the original cause of the BIOS clock adjustment... otherwise, the kernel would have to jog for every operation.

R

optionalreaction.net 70-30

another discussion...

http://gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=188673

R

optionalreaction.net 70-30