> BUG.(HLT,COM911,D36COM,SOFT,<The date is past 9 November 2021>

I got this fix from Thomas DeBellis:

The DECnet-10 COM911 drop dead date of November 9th is now about three weeks
away (23 days). This will crash Tops-10 if it is up and force you to enter
a bogus date on boot up and hope it's not pulling the right date from
anything. That can happen on a KL, but I don't know about a KS.

I posted a patch to work around the issue to HECnet and make Tops-10 act
like OpenVMS in this regard on December 28th of last year.

In D36COM.MAC at NMXTIM+9, change the following two lines (which skip or
fall into the COM911 BUGHLT),

SKIPL T2 ;MAKE SURE WE HAVE A POSITIVE NUMBER OF SECONDS
TDNE T1,[XWD -1,600000] ;MAKE SURE NO DATE OVERFLOW

to

SKIPGE T2 ;Do WE HAVE A POSITIVE NUMBER OF SECONDS?
MOVMS T2 ; No. Fine, now we're plenty positive
TDZA T1,[XWD -1,600000] ;MAKE SURE never any DATE OVERFLOW ever

>> BUG.(HLT,COM911,D36COM,SOFT,<The date is past 9 November 2021>
> I got this fix from Thomas DeBellis

He adds:

It turns out that you can change the fix slightly to be able to patch
the monitor directly with FILDDT. You want to change two instructions
at NMXTIM+13 from:

NMXTIM+12/ IDIV T3,TICSEC
NMXTIM+13/ SKIPL T2
NMXTIM+14/ TDNA T1,COMCAW+10
NMXTIM+15/ XCT COM911

To:

NMXTIM+12/ IDIV T3,TICSEC
NMXTIM+13/ MOVMS T2
NMXTIM+14/ TDZA T1,COMCAW+10
NMXTIM+15/ XCT COM911

So doing that will keep you from crashing. You can even deposit it
right into the running monitor (one hesitates to say, 'toggle'...)

On Thursday, November 4, 2021 at 11:12:47 AM UTC-4, lars...@nocrew.org wrote:
> >> BUG.(HLT,COM911,D36COM,SOFT,<The date is past 9 November 2021>
> > I got this fix from Thomas DeBellis
> He adds:
>
> It turns out that you can change the fix slightly to be able to patch
> the monitor directly with FILDDT. You want to change two instructions
> at NMXTIM+13 from:
>
> NMXTIM+12/ IDIV T3,TICSEC
> NMXTIM+13/ SKIPL T2
> NMXTIM+14/ TDNA T1,COMCAW+10
> NMXTIM+15/ XCT COM911
>
> To:
>
> NMXTIM+12/ IDIV T3,TICSEC
> NMXTIM+13/ MOVMS T2
> NMXTIM+14/ TDZA T1,COMCAW+10
> NMXTIM+15/ XCT COM911
>
> So doing that will keep you from crashing. You can even deposit it
> right into the running monitor (one hesitates to say, 'toggle'...)

Hey folks, how might an amateur TOPS-10 operator do this fix? I run FILDDT and then enter the NMXTIM commands?

Thanks for any simple steps!

Andy

> Hey folks, how might an amateur TOPS-10 operator do this fix?
>I run FILDDT and then enter the NMXTIM commands?

I may have forgotten a step or two, but ...

Log is as [1,2]
COPY [1,5]=SYSTEM.EXE[1,4]
R FILDDT
File: SYSTEM[1,5]
NXMTIM+13/ (you should see DDT type the "SKIPL T2...") MOVMS T2 <CTRL-J>
(DDT should type NXMTIM+14 and the TDNA... You enter the TDZA ... et al and CTRL-J)
CTRL-Z
Shutdown and reboot
At the BOOT> prompt, enter "[1,5]"
You should now be running the patched monitor.
If all is well, you can rename SYSTEM.EXE[1,4] to [1,3], and then rename SYSTEM.EXE[1,5] to [1,4].

BTW, on TOPS-10 [1,5] is NEW:, [1,4] is SYS: and [1,3] is OLD:.

Bob

On Friday, November 5, 2021 at 10:54:00 AM UTC-4, Robert Armstrong wrote:
> > Hey folks, how might an amateur TOPS-10 operator do this fix?
> >I run FILDDT and then enter the NMXTIM commands?
> I may have forgotten a step or two, but ...
>
> Log is as [1,2]
> COPY [1,5]=SYSTEM.EXE[1,4]
> R FILDDT
> File: SYSTEM[1,5]
> NXMTIM+13/ (you should see DDT type the "SKIPL T2...") MOVMS T2 <CTRL-J>
> (DDT should type NXMTIM+14 and the TDNA... You enter the TDZA ... et al and CTRL-J)
> CTRL-Z
> Shutdown and reboot
> At the BOOT> prompt, enter "[1,5]"
> You should now be running the patched monitor.
> If all is well, you can rename SYSTEM.EXE[1,4] to [1,3], and then rename SYSTEM.EXE[1,5] to [1,4].
>
> BTW, on TOPS-10 [1,5] is NEW:, [1,4] is SYS: and [1,3] is OLD:.
>
> Bob

Thanks Bob I will give that a whirl and report back!

Andy