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- Seamlessly upgrade OS-9® v2.4 without affecting your applications
- Assure Year 2000 compliance for OS-9® embedded systems
- Easy-to-use "drop-in" solution on top of current OS-9® system
The Microware Year 2000 Solution for OS-9® for 68K contains modules and files designed to provide Year 2000 (Millennium) support for existing systems running at the v2.4.x level of OS-9® for 68K. The updates supplied with this release do not comprise of a complete release of OS-9® for 68K, but are intended to update various components of an existing v2.4 system.
If your system is running an earlier version of OS-9® for 68K (such as v2.0 through v2.3), you are encouraged to upgrade your system to v2.4 before attempting to use this update. Microware has only tested, and will only support, Year 2000 Solution when it has been applied to a v2.4 system.
OS-9® Kernel Changes
The following changes have been made to the OS-9® kernel in this v2.4 release:
- Allows for non-sticky module memory to be returned when an I$Close occurs.
- F$GBlkMp checks system/user-state when deciding to perform a ChkMem on the caller's buffer.
- AlocPD (used to allocate process or path descriptors) will find the final entry.
- The problems with timed sleeps and alarms that were due to activate after the tick counter (D_Ticks) rolled over have been fixed (using 100 ticks per second, this counter would roll over after approx. 16 months).
Basic (Basic09) and Runb Changes
The following features have been added to Basic and Runb:
- DATE$ correctly prints the year for 2000 and beyond
- Basic/Runb/I-Code modules now run on 68040/68060 systems when user-state memory is set for copy-back cache mode.
All real-time clocks (RTC) were modified to ensure they would function properly through the turn of the century. The RTC were made consistent in their handling of the roll-over. Specifically, an epoch of 70 was chosen and used such that any year read from the RTC that is less than the epoch is added to the base year 2000, and any year greater than the epoch is added to 1900. Thus, the interpreted year ranges from 2000-2069,1970-1999 as the RTC year value ranges from 00-99.
The following RTC modules were updated in this release:- rtc1216E.a
- rtc146818.a
- rtc48T02.a
- rtc48T08.a
- rtc58274.a.
The time.h header file has been updated so the time_t structure matches the ANSI-C version that currently ships with the Ultra C compiler. The version of this file that originally shipped with v2.4 typed the elements of time_t as "char". The updated version types these elements as "u_char".
RAMDISK Changes
The following changes have been made to RAMDISK:
- The RAMDISK driver now supports sector sizes greater than 256 bytes. Valid sector sizes now match RBF's supported sizes (256 - 32K).
- The maximum media size of a RAM disk is now 4GB.
- RAM disks may now be re-formatted using the format utility, provided that the format-enabled flag is set in the descriptor control word.
Pipe File Manager (PIPEMAN)
The following changes have been made to PIPEMAN:
- The default Pipe descriptors will now add Append_ to the mode byte.
- PIPEMAN also maintains the "FD Date" information in a similar manner to RBF.
NRF and RBF Changes
The following changes have been made to the NRF and RBF modules:
- The year fields in file descriptor now treat the year value as the "number of years since 1900." This allows NRF and RBF media to provide an unambiguous year value through 2155.
- Various enhancements to the RBF module to increase usability.
Utility Changes
The following utilities were updated to correctly support Year 2000:
- freestore
- login
- pr
- setime
- tapegen
- tsmon
- rename
- format
- os9gen
- fsave
- dir
When using the "copy" utility, the buffer is now freed before the verify pass resulting in more consistent utility behavior. And copying from a pipe now sets the file size correctly.
When using the "diskcache" utility, processes can now no longer utilize the RBF structures at the same time the "diskcache" modifies them.
Software RequirementsThe software prerequisite for the Microware Year 2000 Solution for OS-9® for 68K is v2.4.x.
Ordering InformationFor pricing, licensing and product information, please send e-mail to os9@radisys.com or call 1-800-475-9000 or (515) 223-8000.
OS-9® for 68K v2.4.x Year 2000 Data Sheet