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Y2K is basically a problem of the identification of year code. To save storage space, traditional
software uses only two digits for year identification. For example, 98 for 1998 and 99 for 1999, but
00 will be confused with 1900 and 2000.
There is an RTC circuit (Real Time Clock) in conjunction with 128 bytes of CMOS RAM data in the
chipset of the motherboard. The RTC has only two digits and the CMOS has another 2 digits.
Unfortunately, this circuit's behavior is like this 1997! 1998 ! 1999 ! 1900, that means it may
have the Y2K problem. Below is a diagram of how applications work with the OS, BIOS and RTC.
In order to keep the best compatibility in the PC industry there is a rule that applications must call
the OS to get services and OS must call the BIOS, and then only BIOS is allowed to access the
hardware (RTC) directly.
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