Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!texbell!frith.egr.msu.edu!upba!tssi!nolan
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ncr
Subject: Date Error on 4920 and 4940 Terminals!!
Message-ID: <302@texbell.swbt.com>
Date: 2 Mar 90 03:13:58 GMT
Lines: 78
Resender: towers@texbell.swbt.com (NCR Tower Mailing List)

There is a rom error affecting NCR 4920 and 4940 terminals (and probably
related terminals such as the ADDS 2020, etc.)
 
Although yesterday, February 28, 1990, was correctly interpreted as a
Wednesday in the date display on the status line; today, March 1, 1990,
is incorrectly depicted as Friday.  (Don't I wish....)
 
The display will continue to be off by one day for the balance of 1990, but
will correctly display the proper day of the week in 1991.

NCR Field Support is aware of this problem, and it apparently traces back
to a problem at ADDS that, having just been identified, has no fix at this time.

Users may also wish to know of a problem affecting dates beyond 1999.  The
terminal will not permit the date to be changed beyond 1999.  (It cycles back
to 1900.)

If the date is reset manually to December 31st, 1999, at 11:58 pm, it will
correctly advance to the year 2000, after which it will be possible to cycle
through years beyond 2000.  However, if the time is downloaded from the
computer to the terminal, it does not reset to 19xx.  (To reset it, press
the ENTER key on the numeric pad when on the year field, and it will reset
to 1986.)

If you do not already know how to download the system time and date into a 4940
terminal, the following shell script will work.  (A different script is
needed for a 4920 terminal.)


echo "Setting time on NCR 4940 terminal to \c"
date
hour=`date|cut -c12-13`
echo "\033\01\026\c"
echo "$hour\037"
minute=`date|cut -c15-16`
echo "\033\01\025\c"
echo "$minute\037"
month=`date|cut -c5-7`
echo "\033\01\016\c"
case $month in
  Jan ) echo "01\c";;
  Feb ) echo "02\c";;
  Mar ) echo "03\c";;
  Apr ) echo "04\c";;
  May ) echo "05\c";;
  Jun ) echo "06\c";;
  Jul ) echo "07\c";;
  Aug ) echo "08\c";;
  Sep ) echo "09\c";;
  Oct ) echo "10\c";;
  Nov ) echo "11\c";;
  Dec ) echo "12\c";;
esac
echo "\037"
day1=`date|cut -c9-9`
day2=`date|cut -c10-10`
if [ "$day1" = " " ]
  then day1=0
fi
day=$day1$day2
echo "\033\01\015\c"
echo "$day\037"
year=`date|cut -c27-28`
echo "\033\01\017\c"
echo "$year\037"
century=`date|cut -c25-26`
echo "\033\01\018\c"
echo "$century\037"

NOTE TO UNIX WIZARDS:  I am sure there is a more efficient way to do this
rather than calling for the system date 7 times, but I don't know it.
 
Please feel free to suggest refinements.

Mike Nolan                          (frith.egr.msu.edu!upba!tssi!nolan)
Tailored Software Services, Inc.
Lincoln, Nebraska
(402) 423-1490