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Hi All,

I got hold of my Atari 1040 STfm this week and it came with an interesting component that I hadn't heard of before. It's a cartridge called a "Forget Me Clock II" (see Photo) apparently they we created to allow the ST series to retain the date and time without the user needing to set it every time. The one I have plugs in to the cartridge slot but also has an adapter at the end so you can plug another cartridge in.



There is some information on it here if anyone is interested.

http://pest.atari.org/www.logicsays.com/atari/fmc/index.htm

They did have one issue which was they did not cope with Y2k so there are fixes you can put in to an Auto folder on your Language disk that sort it out for you. Essentially its a fix that adds 20 years to the date eg.06.09.93 becomes 06.09.13. Unfortunately it means that it will only work till 2020 but I'm sure someone will fix it up when the time comes

If you are interested it the Y2k fix there is some good information here:
http://www.bygjohn.fsnet.co.uk/atari/y2k.html

I managed to get my one working after a few failures which were mainly from my lack of knowledge about the ST OS.

Anyway I thought it was interesting

Cheers

Rel

I'm surprised the battery in that cartridge has lasted that long!

Mind you, it's possibly a good thing the Atari ST didn't come with a real-time clock. I know a couple of Amigas have fallen victim to the batteries in those clocks leaking and destroying components.

Shayde wrote:I'm surprised the battery in that cartridge has lasted that long!

Mind you, it's possibly a good thing the Atari ST didn't come with a real-time clock. I know a couple of Amigas have fallen victim to the batteries in those clocks leaking and destroying components.

Yes I was surprised that the Atari ST DIDN'T have a battery and real time clock. Most machines around that time were starting to incorporate them, even in their basic configurations.

I remember pulling my 1040ST apart in order to remove the battery...only to find it didn't have one.

Shayde wrote:I'm surprised the battery in that cartridge has lasted that long!

Mind you, it's possibly a good thing the Atari ST didn't come with a real-time clock. I know a couple of Amigas have fallen victim to the batteries in those clocks leaking and destroying components.

Yeah I had read about the problem with the Amiga 500+ machines so I think you are right there. I suspect the battery in my cartridge has been replaced as it looks new.

Cheers

Rel

Atari added an RTC to the ST line starting with the Mega models.