Year 2000 Help - Old Version

Webmaster's Note: This page has been obviated by the arrival of a shareware program by John Moreno which will fix Cyberdog's Y2K problem. Read about it on the main Y2K page.

There is only one bug in Cyberdog that has been found to cause problems after the year 2000 begins. It deals only with the "Date" field in E-mail messages and Newsgroup posts.

This bug does not affect the reading or retrieving of either Mail or News. But, it will cause Cyberdog to create and send messages with an improper Date field in their headers.

To correct it, you will need to follow the steps outlined below. You will also need a file editor (such as BrainHex) that is capable of editing the Data Fork of a Macintosh file in Hexadecimal format. It should also be capable of jumping to an offset in a file, or at least searching the file for a certain data string.

I suggest doing it in hexadecimal format, because that is the format of the information provided below.

The steps are actually quite simple, but you may find them intimidating. If you are afraid to do them yourself, we have a number of alternatives to suggest:

1. Get someone you know is more familiar with such things to do it for you.

2. Wait until later in the year, when we expect to have a modified version of the file which you will be able to download.

3. Wait until later in the year, when we also hope to have a patch program that will do the actual work for you.

Send comments, problems, and corrections to the Webmaster.

Select the version of Cyberdog you would like to modify for Y2K compliance.

PPC

68K

FAT

Instructions: PPC

Here are the steps necessary for fixing the PPC version of Cyberdog:

• Quit Cyberdog, if it is running. You should never edit a running program.
• Make a copy of the file "Cyberdog Editors" in the Finder. It can be found on the boot drive of your Cyberdog install, inside of the "System Folder:Editors:Cyberdog Libraries:" folder. Store this copy somewhere safe, just in case anything goes wrong and you need to restore Cyberdog to its previous state.

  WARNING:   Don't neglect to make a copy and store it securely. Editing application files is not recommended, and we cannot guarantee that it will not harm your System, your computer, or any related item. You do so entirely at your own risk.

1. Open the Data Fork of the file "Cyberdog Editors" in your choice of file editor (open the file you will be using, not the copy). And make sure that your file editor (such as BrainHex) is set to allow editing of the file. (In BrainHex, this is most quickly done by clicking the lock icon so that it is opened.)
2. Then, go to the file offset (or position) 1794514 (decimal) or 1B61D2 (hexadecimal) in the file. The relevant command is often called "Jump", if you're having trouble finding it.
3. At this location in the file, you should see (if you are looking at it in hexadecimal format) the series of digits "F894". Change this to "0000".
4. Save and close the file.

Cyberdog should now be able to send E-mail and News messages properly with dates in the year 2000 and beyond.

Instructions: 68K

Here are the steps necessary for fixing the 68K version of Cyberdog:

• Quit Cyberdog, if it is running. You should never edit a running program.
• Make a copy of the file "Cyberdog Editors" in the Finder. It can be found on the boot drive of your Cyberdog install, inside of the "System Folder:Editors:Cyberdog Libraries:" folder. Store this copy somewhere safe, just in case anything goes wrong and you need to restore Cyberdog to its previous state.

  WARNING:   Don't neglect to make a copy and store it securely. Editing application files is not recommended, and we cannot guarantee that it will not harm your System, your computer, or any related item. You do so entirely at your own risk.

1. Open the Data Fork of the file "Cyberdog Editors" in your choice of file editor (open the one you will be using, not the copy). And make sure that your file editor (such as BrainHex) is set to allow editing of the file. (In BrainHex, this is most quickly done by clicking the lock icon so that it is opened.)
2. Then, go to the file offset (or position) 1755552 (decimal) or 1AC9A0 (hexadecimal) in the file. The relevant command is often called "Jump", if you're having trouble finding it.
3. At this location in the file, you should see (if you are looking at it in hexadecimal format) the series of digits "FFFF F894". Change this to "0000 0000". (Do not include the space even if your editor will allow you to do so. It is only shown for readability.)
4. Save and close the file.

Cyberdog should now be able to send E-mail and News messages properly with dates in the year 2000 and beyond.

Instructions: FAT

This version does not yet have a fix available. If you know of the proper file positions needed to be changed, please send me the information.