No-Slot Clock Utilities Disk This utilities disk contains a new set of files, different from those described in the manual for the No-Slot Clock. The previous set of utility files has been replaced by two files, NS.CLOCK.UTILS and READ.TIME. NS.CLOCK.UTILS allows you to install a special file called NS.CLOCK.SYSTEM on any PRODOS 8 disks that you wish to boot with, so that at bootup PRODOS will recognized your No-Slot Clock. It is important to note that this utility no longer 'patches' or otherwise modifies the PRODOS system program. Therefore, you can update to future versions of PRODOS without affecting the operation of your No-Slot Clock. Instead, the NS.CLOCK.SYSTEM program (contained inside of NS.CLOCK.UTILS) is added to the main or root directory of your boot disk so that it will be the first '.SYSTEM' program executed. If a No-Slot Clock is found, the No-Slot Clock driver will be installed. If it is not found, booting will continue to the next '.SYSTEM' file. NS.CLOCK.UTILS and NS.CLOCK.SYSTEM no longer need to be 'Configured'. They both automatically find your No-Slot Clock, wherever it's located. In addition, NS.CLOCK.UTILS allows you to set or change the time of your clock. You can run the NS.CLOCK.UTILS program by typing '-NS.CLOCK.UTILS'. The READ.TIME program allows you to read the time from the clock while using BASIC or assembly language programs. You install the program by typing 'BRUN READ.TIME', which will load READ.TIME in page $300 of your Apple and automatically find the location of your No-Slot Clock. Then from BASIC you just type 'CALL 768,T$', and the clock date and time will be placed in the variable following the comma after '768'. This variable can be any valid string variable. From assembly language, after 'BRUN'ing READ.TIME, you just do a 'JSR $30B', and the ascii string representing the time will be placed at $280-$291. Also, the hex values for the time are placed at $303-$30A, as was true of the old CLOCKREAD program. If no clock is present, a null value is returned to T$ and at location $304. See the STARTUP program on the /No.Slot.Clock disk for an example of using this call from BASIC. This version 1.4 of the NS.CLOCK.UTILS time setting program now fully supports the day of the week function of the clock. READ.TIME will return the day of the week in location 774 ($306). A 1 represents Sunday, a 2 Monday, ... up to a 7 for Saturday. READ.TIME is not relocatable and will always load in part of page $200 and $300. As an added bonus, the /No.Slot.Clock disk has a DOS 3.3 partition on it. If you boot DOS 3.3 from another disk and then CATALOG the /No.Slot.Clock disk, you will find the files NS.CLOCK.UTILS and READ.TIME on the disk in the partition for DOS 3.3. The operation of each is the same as was explained above, except that NS.CLOCK.UTILS has no option for placing NS.CLOCK.SYSTEM on a disk, since that is purely a PRODOS function. You can set or change the time on the clock. You start up NS.CLOCK.UTILS by 'BRUN'ing it. READ.TIME operates as described above. CAP 04/21/91 `