Introduction:

This program is extremely useful when you need proper clock settings
on your computer.  It's extremely annoying if some buggy software
trashes the clock settings and e.g.  the newsreader sets the date of
incoming news to 2023 (which happened to the programmer some time ago...
that was the reason for writing this program).

Function:

When the program is started, it first checks when the last session on
your Amiga was.  If the date differs from the current date by more
than a certain number of days (which can be set via an environment
variable), you will be notified about that and you can let the program
start the time preferences program.  After that the clock is checked
each second.  If it changes by more than one minute, a requester pops
up.  Note that programs that disable multitasking for more than one
minute will dupe ClockChk into detecting a time change.  To avoid this
behaviour, either don't use your system after playing such a game or
invoke ClockChk with the CLI parameter "ONCE", so ClockChk will return
after the doing initial clock check and setting the environment
variable that contains the date of the last session.

The program can be ended by sending a CTRL-C signal to it, but that's
normally not necessary because it uses very little memory and nearly
no CPU time.

Installation:

Copy program to C: and enter the following line into s:user-startup

run <>nil: ClockChk

When ClockChk is started the very first time, the date of the last
setting will obviously not be present and a requester will pop up that
informs you about that.  Hit "Ignore" in this case.

Configuration:

ClockChk is configured by setting environment variables.  Don't forget
to copy them to ENVARC: if you want to permanently set them.

DAYDIFF
   Contains the number of days between two sessions without being
   notified by setting the environment variable DAYDIFF.  The default
   value is 3 which will be used when the variable isn't set up or if
   it's invalid.

TIMEPREFS
   Contains the full path of the Time Preferences editor.  If it isn't
   set, SYS:Prefs/Time will be used.

LASTDATE
   Contains the date and time of the last session.  You don't need to
   bother about this variable.  If it's invalid or not present (the
   latter will happen with the very first run of ClockChk), you will
   be notified and after that the current date is saved to it.

Bugs:

None known.

Notes:

ClockChk has to write into ENVARC:  in order to save the current
session's date.  If the write operation fails, you will be notified
about that, of course.

Disclaimer:

The author cannot be held liable for the suitability or accuracy of
this manual and/or the program(s) it describes.  Any damage directly
or indirectly caused by the use or misuse of this manual and/or the
program it describes is the sole responsibility of the user her/him
self.

Copyright/Distribution

All files mentioned below are (C) Copyright 1997 Christian Wasner.
All rights reserved.

These files/programs are FREEWARE, so no financial donations are
required (but welcome).  They may be freely distributed as long as all
files remain unchanged and are included with the distribution.
Distribution on disks or CDs is permitted only on the disks or CDs
from Fred Fish, the Aminet CDs, from disks that cost less than $1 or
from CDs that cost less then $20.  Electronical distribution (e.g.  by
Aminet, mailboxes, modems) is allowed.  Inclusion into freeware
software packages is allowed, inclusion into other packages (e.g.
commercial or shareware) must be expressly allowed by me in written
form.

The following files should come along:

ClockChk             Executable program                     6039 bytes
ClockChk13.readme    Documentation                          5306 bytes
ClockChk.c           Source code                            7978 bytes
SCOPTIONS            Options for compiling with SAS-C 6.58   205 bytes
FILE_ID.DIZ          Mailbox description                     388 bytes


History:

   05-Feb-97 V1.0   - Initial release

   12-Feb-97 V1.1   - Aminet version showed version 0.1 on "version"
                      command.
                    - File list contained wrong name of documentation.
                    - Date of current session wasn't saved correctly
                      when detecting a date discrepancy with the last
                      session's date along with correcting the date.

   04-Aug-97 V1.2   - The program couldn't handle date string with
                      more than one space between date and time.

   13-Aug-97 V1.3   - Optimization wasn't enabled in SCOPTIONS file
                      (so one dead assignment and ond one possibly
                      uninitialized variable was detected when
                      compiled with optimization)
                    - Recompiled with SAS-C V6.58... Thanks to all the
                      guys who still offer their spare time for
                      bugfixing and improving SAS-C
                    - CLI parameter "ONCE" added
                    - File list contained wrong name of documentation
                      (as always ;-))

 PERMSSN    UID  GID    PACKED    SIZE  RATIO     CRC       STAMP          NAME
---------- ----------- ------- ------- ------ ---------- ------------ -------------
[generic]                 3387    6036  56.1% -lh5- f05f Aug 16  1997 ClockChk
[generic]                 2692    7978  33.7% -lh5- b512 Aug 16  1997 ClockChk.c
[generic]                 2316    5309  43.6% -lh5- 1168 Aug 16  1997 ClockChk13.readme
[generic]                  208     388  53.6% -lh5- eaac Aug 16  1997 file_id.diz
[generic]                  143     205  69.8% -lh5- dfcb Aug 16  1997 scoptions
---------- ----------- ------- ------- ------ ---------- ------------ -------------
 Total         5 files    8746   19916  43.9%            Aug 18  1997