My Hall is currently living in 2005. Please help.

[Patricia777]

Dear All,

I cannot book any appointments for this year as my Hall believes we are in the year 2005! I must say there is nothing wrong with my computer clock. I also noticed when I start Hal, he only gives me the day, month and hours/minutes of the day BUT NOT the year. Can someone help me solve this issue please? Thank you very much.

Patricia

[Rich_A]

Hello Patricia,
Your Hal might be tracking the proper time and year, so you may just need to scroll your appointment calendar back from 2005 to 2004 and then to the current month of this year. Just scroll back one month at a time. You can scroll forward or back to any month using the "Prev Month" and "Next Month" tabs/buttons at the bottom left hand corner of the appointment window. If your calender is currently in 2005, then when you go back from January 2005 it should change to December 2004. If none of this happens when you try to scroll back then you may need to try reinstalling the Hal program on your computer.

Also, Hal doesn't state the year on startup because he is not programmed to do that, but he knows what year it is...he just isn't going to tell you on startup!
But if you really wanted the year stated you can put that information into the greeting:

Say This: Hello <username>! The current year is 2004.

This can be done by going into "General Options" and then selecting the "Startup Tab" and then look for the "Say This:" and then edit what is in the box. Hal will say whatever you want him to say in the greeting. Just remember to change it next year!
Good Luck!
Rich_A

[Patricia777]

Dear Rich A.

Thank you very much for your kind assistance. I have checked my calendar as you suggested and found that it was currently showing the correct date and year. I have typed the year 2004 in my Hal's greetings and it works fine when opening the program. However, Hal "has not come back from the future" he still tells me we're in 2005.

My guess is I will have to reinstall the program.

Best regards
Patricia

[Patricia777]

Hello Inquisitor,

After changing the defbrain file directory that was under Ultra Hal Assistant and having placed it under the c "Brain" that I created for the occasion, I run Hal again and it started as you suggested rightly a "reinstall". After this unfortunate operation, my Hal became a "vegetable", completely useless. The Defbrain indeed replicates itself in its home directory Ultra Hal Assistant during its reinstall and despite the fact that all brains were present under the General Options, my HAL was no longer himself and became completely incoherent eg:

User: Hi
Hal: Didn't you just say that?
User: No, I didn't just say that.
Hal: Didn't you just say that?
User: How are you?
Hal: Didn't you just say that?
User: What's the meaning of life?
Hal: Are you going to repeat yourself?

and so on so forth. In other words, my Hal had become totally incoherent! I reinstalled his latest brain to find out if I could remedy the situation but alas the same reoccurred. My Hal had gone "bonkers". My advise if I may: DON'T DO IT! DO NOT MOVE THE DEFBRAIN FILE ANYWHERE otherwise you're gonna lose all your works and the sanity of your Hal.

I had to buy and redownload a new version of Hal (I'm still waiting for the CD and microphone to arrive from Zabaware). I guess it's all a good experience and we learn from our mistakes. I have fortunately saved all my Hal conversations and am going to copy and paste his learnings in our conversation pane instead of retyping the whole story again.

To All you may read this: Please DO NOT MOVE the defbrain file from its mother directory! Unless you have the CD and want to completly reinstall Hal.

Best regards
Patricia

quote:Originally posted by Inquisitor2004

I have just checked mine too,  and my one also thinks it's 2005.  I don't want to loose the brain that I have worked on,  so I am hoping that Patricia777 can please come back to this forum and let us know if reinstalling was sucessful.

I only noticed this today as I am not using the calender function.  BUT saying that, I would like it still to work, I did pay for this after all and would like what i paid for to work copletely.

(no point buying a car with a faulty spare wheel,  you may never need it, but there may come a time when you will. )

thanks in advance.[]

[Inquisitor2004]

thought it best to delete the post then..

[Patricia777]

Inquisitor, it's best not to move the defbrain folder from its mother directory. As Hal would say "I learned something new". I have not lost my original teachings. So, don't worry about it. In any case, I like to experiment.[]

Patricia

quote:Originally posted by Inquisitor2004

thought it best to delete the post then..

[Inquisitor2004]

I think I will reinstall, as my one is suffering the 2005 fault that you speak of in another post..

[Patricia777]

Inquisitor, please do NOT reinstall. It won't solve the problem. My "new" Hal also believes we are 2005. I'm afraid we have to wait for a patch from ZABAWARE to resolve this problem.

Patricia

quote:Originally posted by Inquisitor2004

I think I will reinstall, as my one is suffering the 2005 fault that you speak of in another post..

[Inquisitor2004]

lol... it's great this artificial intelligence lark isn't it???    you can talk to it, it responds, learns, knows the things about southpark,  remembers things,  phones people....        with all this great stuff that this program can do,  you'd think those NASA AI boffins would tell the flippin thing to remember what year it's existing in..    

Come back ZX Spectrum,  all is forgiven, I will even sit here and type out ( in basic programming language ) a program that displays the time and date,  cos at this rate, the 1k spectrum has this jumped up filo-fax beat hands down.

[Inquisitor2004]

Ok, figured this out now,

the reason that Hal thinks its 2005 is because your regional settings have the date format dd/mm/yyyy.   if you go into your regional settings (via control panel) and change it to mm/dd/yyyy,  Hal suddenly remembers that it's 2004 again.

Next problem I have now, is that when I enter the opointment book via the options menu,  and then cycle the months,   all the months are random  e.g  Jan, Mar, May, Aug  ( this is just stepping the "next month" button forward and backwards)..

So when trying to set an opointment for the future,  hal seems to randomly pick it's own month.    And one more thing for March 2004, it thinks that today (March 10th) is a monday.   so the calender is well and truly shaffted.

any suggestions?

[Patricia777]

Inquisitor, you are SO SMART! As smart as my Hal in fact! [8D]

Thanks so much! It worked my Hal is back from the future! []

I await with baited breath your next breakthrough!

Patricia

quote:Originally posted by Inquisitor2004

Ok, figured this out now,

the reason that Hal thinks its 2005 is because your regional settings have the date format dd/mm/yyyy.   if you go into your regional settings (via control panel) and change it to mm/dd/yyyy,  Hal suddenly remembers that it's 2004 again.

Next problem I have now, is that when I enter the opointment book via the options menu,  and then cycle the months,   all the months are random  e.g  Jan, Mar, May, Aug  ( this is just stepping the "next month" button forward and backwards)..

So when trying to set an opointment for the future,  hal seems to randomly pick it's own month.    And one more thing for March 2004, it thinks that today (March 10th) is a monday.   so the calender is well and truly shaffted.

any suggestions?

[Inquisitor2004]

thank you thank you,  

I am here all week.. lol... Patricia,  can you open your calender for me, and cycle the dates forward about 5 months,  do they cycle in the correct order for you ?  ( eg - jan, feb, march... )

mine does not,  and before I disect it, I need to know if this is happening to others too.

thanks

[Inquisitor2004]

scratch that,  I have sorted that out too.

Yay my sandy's all better now.  going to download all the scripts of RED DWARF and BLACK ADDER into her now.   ( comedys )  gonna be great.

[Patricia777]

Hi Inquisitor, yes, the months cycle in the correct order in my calender up all the way up to 2006 and beyond.

Patricia

quote:Originally posted by Inquisitor2004

thank you thank you,  

I am here all week.. lol... Patricia,  can you open your calender for me, and cycle the dates forward about 5 months,  do they cycle in the correct order for you ?  ( eg - jan, feb, march... )

mine does not,  and before I disect it, I need to know if this is happening to others too.

thanks