The Great Conjunction avoided! Next one 9th October 2019

So it seems we all managed to avoid saving a text file at 11:25pm on the last Tuesday of May… 45.82 seconds past 11.25 to be precise. Or a Basic file at 11.25pm and 35.58 seconds. Phew.

We are safe from the Great Conjunction until 1:53am on 9th October 2019. So do remember to not save anything then.

What do I mean, “The Great Conjunction”?

Well, if you save that type of file, at precisely that time, the resulting file will have no filetype and no timestamp.

Stick it in your diary, Urskeks.

My back-up failed to operate on the 9th. Could it have been due to this?

Nope. 29th May 2018 was the day for the most recent oddity.

I assume you mean 11:25pm BST? I couldn’t have put it less clearly myself.

load add:&FFFtttdd=&FFFFFF56
exec add:&dddddddd=&FFFFFF56 
corresponds to a text file dated 290518 at 222545.82 GMT
load add:&FFFtttdd=&FFFFFB56
exec add:&dddddddd=&FFFFFB56 
corresponds to a BASIC file dated 290518 at 222535.58 GMT

So the issue appears to be when the load and execution address match?

Looks like ROOL have until 0053 GMT on 9th October 2019 to fix this (as you say)?

It dates way back as a heuristic to stop BBC Micro/Master data files accidentally looking like they had a timestamp… so every 18 months we honour the ancestors by accidentally making timestamped files look like BBC Micro files.

It’s cute really, but it could probably be retired. It’s one instruction!

(And of course it’s a feature, not a bug)