OS version date

Does anybody know how the OS version date (given by *fx 0 and shown in the about this window of the taskmanager) is generated? I have a Raspberry PI where I updated the rom to the version of 7 January. But when I configure the system to an foreign territory then after booting it know returns the date of 5 December 2012 instead of 7 January 2013. it doesn’t depend if the foreign messages or territory module is loaded by !Territory.

The string is generated from the build timestamp stored in the ROM image footer. During startup, once all the ROM modules are initialised, the kernel will try and convert the timestamp to a string using the Territory module. It then caches that string so that it can be used on any future calls to *FX 0. If the string conversion fails (e.g. missing territory module) then the kernel will fall back to using the hardcoded English string that’s built into the kernel – this will typically be the date the kernel was last changed.

Note that we can’t generate the string inside *FX 0 because OS_Byte 0 is documented as being able to run with IRQs disabled, but the territory module may enable IRQs. However I could probably change the code to regenerate the string once a valid territory module is loaded – as long as you load the new territory before entering the desktop that should be enough to make sure the task manager shows the right date.

Thanks for the explanation. It would be nice if this issue could be fixed. Yes, we load our Dutch territory before the desktop according to the procedure described in the PRM.

Got another question. I see that more and more code during the initialisation of the OS calls Territory Manager functions which requires a local territory to be loaded and if it fails it could lead to errors (ie: IconBar message file problem [fixed], OS version string, EtherUSB not finding backend). If this development goes on, I guess in the future this could really lead to more serious errors. Wouldn’t it be better to add foreign territories into the standard ROM and load the UI translation from disc if the user also wants to have a local UI? I think they are a lot of users out there which want out of the box to be able to configure the local territory for their region.

Got another question. I see that more and more code during the initialisation of the OS calls Territory Manager functions […] it be better to add foreign territories into the standard ROM

You already asked that question and the reply was it’s already on the chalk board. Only last week I was looking at countries ranked by population, by area, and by population density.