PMMail/2 closes unexpectedly

[Simon Bowring]

>I'm curious. What exactly do you see wrong with my TZ setting? 
It is likley that one or more of the people I named have incorrect
TZ settings - I cannot tell who!

>Are you not using PMMail? 
Yes
>My date/time looks proper to me *in PMMail* so I'm a bit surprised to hear 
>someone on this list complain about it.
I just noticed that that as well as getting the 4 replies to a posting
before the original posting (in real "physical" time), they were also 
dated that way, since time travel has not been invented, one or
of the people involved must have an incorrect TZ config!

>In fact, though, my TZ setting *is* technically wrong, or rather, my
>real time clock setting is wrong, as I understand the TZ's function,
>because:
>
>1. a computer's real time clock (RTC) should be set to universal
>time.
No - most unixes work this way, but most (if not all) PC operating
sytems require the RTC to be set to local time.  OS/2 Windows and
even Linux (I believe) all use TZ to correct the PC's *local time* to 
GMT/UTC.

On traditional unix systems, the RTC is run in GMT/UTC and TZ is
used to adjust to local time as you describe - this technique is 
much better (you never have to reprogram the RTC when the daylight 
savings time come is and out of effect), but is not done that way 
of PCs for backwards compatibility with DOS, Windows and OS/2!

>Unfortunately though, *ALMOST ALL* applications for OS/2 are
>programmed _incorrectly_ and they ignore the TZ variable when
>displaying the local time. In short, almost all OS/2 applications
>assume that the RTC is set to local time, not universal time.

Many programs that correctly use the ANSI C RTL library functions 
for time will have timezone support.  Many don't bother with the
call to localtime() or [gmtime()], and this is one source of error!

>This means that if you set your RTC and TZ "properly", almost any
>OS/2 time display program available will display the incorrect time.
Not my experience - what programs misbehave this way - I think some
of your problems are due to your misaprehension of how loca time 
works on PCs (maybe?)!

>In my case, it is Object Desktop's Control Center clock which reads
>the RTC and assumes it is local time. 
This is a correct and valid assumption!

>2. set my RTC to local time (this is the option I chose)
This is the only correct option!

>Suggestions for a fix are welcome since I would prefer to set my RTC
>to universal time.
This would be incorrect!

Regards

Simon B.