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Compaq answered ProveIt's criticism of the noncompliance of Compaq computers' real time clock by arguing that this flaw really doesn't matter.
In short, the real time clock is not "mission-critical."
We'll see in 2000, assuming anyone will still be in a position to care.
This is from C/NET (May 29).
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Compaq Computer today confirmed claims by a U.K. firm that makes software fixing the Year 2000 bug that the PC maker's real-time clock inside its machines won't properly recognize dates after January 1, 2000, but insisted that this does not affect the overall performance of its PCs.
Compaq was responding to a statement released yesterday by a British company, Prove It 2000, that it has filed a complaint with the U.K. advertising standards body over claims by the PC maker that its machines are fully prepared for the millennium. . . .
In a statement released today, Compaq found fault with Prove It 2000's charge that it had not alerted its customers about the issue of the Real Time Clock. "In a major white paper titled 'Preparing for the Year 2000,' released in 1997 and updated in January 1998, Compaq did just that, stating: 'Any applications that bypasses the OS and ROM BIOS to obtain date and data directly from the RTC may receive an incorrect date," the company said. . . .
"Applications that obtain data directly from the RTC may exist but, to the extent they do not contain logic to adjust for the actual date, violate basic PC programming principles."
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