heiden@kboeng.enet.dec.com (Matthias Heiden) (11/29/90)
I have problems understanding the behaviour of the appointment alarm annunciator. According to the manual, if an appointment alarm is not acknowledged within 15 sec., the annunciator should stay on. But it doesn't always stays on. Looks for me like repeating alarms do not leave the annunciator on if they don't get not acknowledged. In addition, if several alarms are past due, just the newest non repeating one is displayed for acknowledgment. All other alarms just pass. Flags -43 and -44 are cleared. Is this behaviour normal ? Matthias
bill@videovax.tv.tek.com (William K. McFadden) (12/01/90)
In article <1990Nov29.141809@kboeng.enet.dec.com> heiden@kboeng.enet.dec.com (Matthias Heiden) writes: >According to the manual, if an appointment alarm is not acknowledged within 15 >sec., >the annunciator should stay on. But it doesn't always stays on. Looks for me >like >repeating alarms do not leave the annunciator on if they don't get not >acknowledged. >In addition, if several alarms are past due, just the newest non repeating one >is displayed for >acknowledgment. All other alarms just pass. Flags -43 and -44 are cleared. >Is this behaviour normal ? I found the manual a little confusing on this. On page 447 in the manual, it says "Normally, unacknowledged repeating appointment alarms are rescheduled." That is why the annunciator doesn't stay on for repeating alarms. The alarm is rescheduled, and no past due notice is given. The manual goes on to say, "To cause this type of alarm to be deleted when it becomes past due, set system flag -43." This led me to think the alarm would be gone for good, but it doesn't mean that. What it means is the alarm will not be rescheduled until you acknowledge it. In other words, if you set flag -43, the annunciator will now stay on, and you will get a past due notice for all repeating and non-repeating appointment alarms. Once you acknowledge the alarm it will be rescheduled. Flag -43 does have its side effects. E.g., if you don't acknowledge the repeating alarm, it won't repeat any more. For example, suppose you scheduled an alarm to go off every day at noon. If you don't acknowledge today's alarm, you won't get one tomorrow (this is what the manual means by the alarm being "deleted when it becomes past due"). However, you would get a past due notice every time you turned the calculator on. Also, any other alarms you have scheduled will still happen. Let's say you don't acknowledge the alarm for several days. When you do finally acknowledge it, it will reschedule for today at noon, if it's still morning, or tomorrow at noon, otherwise. As you might have guessed, I like to set flag -43. That way if I miss my weekly alarm that tells me to back up my PC every Friday afternoon, I'll still get a reminder Monday morning when I turn on my 48. -- Bill McFadden Tektronix, Inc. P.O. Box 500 MS 58-639 Beaverton, OR 97077 bill@videovax.tv.tek.com, {hplabs,uw-beaver,decvax}!tektronix!videovax!bill Phone: (503) 627-6920 "The biggest difference between developing a missle component and a toy is the 'cost constraint.'" -- John Anderson, Engineer, TI