Setting automatically the power on time on NeXT Computers ========================================================= Enclosed you find some programs for setting the auto-power-on time automatically under program control without using the Preferences Application. Only some NeXTs with a special version of RTC Chip are able to power themself on at a certain time. If there is a PopUp button in the Startup Preferences (in the Preferences Apllication) with "Startup Device" and "Power", you are one of the lucky. The people who don't have this feature don't normally miss it; it's nearly undocumented. The programs are: setpwr setting the next power on time and enable/disable it usage: setpwr [-on|-off] t_time t_time are seconds since 1 Jan 1970 getpwr getting the next power on time test if it is enabled usage: getpwr print next power on time in seconds since 1 Jan 1970 to stdout and return 0 if power on is enabled and 1 if disabled getdate converts a human-readable date/time to time since epoch (number of seconds since 1 Jan 1970) ctime converts seconds since 1 Jan 1970 into a human-readable form see also man pages for ctime(1), ctime(3), getdate(1), getdate(3) How to achieve a daily power on? setpwr only sets the power time once. If you want to power on you NeXT every day automatically, you have to do it via cron or even better, via /etc/halt. Each time the NeXT is powered down (with the power key or with shutdown -h -p) /etc/halt is executed. Therefore this is a good place for setting the next power on time. Rename /usr/etc/halt to /usr/etc/halt.dist and put this or a similar script into /usr/etc/halt instead: #!/bin/csh # set LOGFILE = /usr/adm/power.log # echo `date` halt: $* >>$LOGFILE /usr/local/etc/setpower >>$LOGFILE /usr/etc/halt.dist $* /usr/local/etc/setpower is the script that comes with these programs. setpower counts the old power on time in 86400 second (a day) increments to a time > current time and sets the new power on time. You have to enable the power on feature (via Preferences or via setpwr -on) in order to get the NeXT to power on! BTW: You have to be root to set the power on time! Please regard the programs as is. I even didn't have the chance to test them before distributing, because my new board does not have the right RTC chip! Thanks to Reimer A. Mellin (ram@ramsys.sta.sub.org) who put my clumsy assembler routines and his knowledge together in power.c! Christian Baur cbaur@blabel.sta.sub.org (NeXTMail) cbaur@pst.informatik.uni-muenchen.de (NeXTMail)
These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Netfuture.ch.