Date issues with SIMH

[Tyler Mitchell <fission%ldx.ca@localhost>]

Hello,

I'm having trouble getting NetBSD/vax to boot up with the correct date and
time on SIMH, and was wondering if anyone else has come across this same
issue before.

My environment:

        - SIMH VAX simulator V3.8-1 on Ubuntu 10.04.1 (x86_64).
        - Pacific timezone (currently Pacific Standard Time, UTC-8).
        - Hardware clock is in UTC (UTC=yes in /etc/default/rcS)
        - /etc/localtime on both Linux and NetBSD side is set to Pacific
        - I am attaching a persistent NVRAM file (SIMH's NVR driver)

From my testing, it's not possible (or I don't know how ;-) to change the 
hardware clock from within SIMH. Setting the time manually in either VMS 
or NetBSD seems to have no lasting effect -- on the next boot, the time is 
(relatively) unchanged.

VMS boots up with the correct date and time:

% date && sudo vax vms-boot
Fri Nov 12 22:25:26 PST 2010
        [...snip...]
   OpenVMS (TM) VAX Version V7.3     Major version id = 1 Minor version id = 0
        [...snip...]
%STDRV-I-STARTUP, OpenVMS startup begun at 12-NOV-2010 22:25:57.88


With NetBSD, I get a time that's consistently 24+8 hours slow:

% date && sudo vax nbvax-boot
Fri Nov 12 22:29:06 PST 2010
        [...snip...]
> > NetBSD/vax boot [1.11 Fri Nov 12 10:41:45 UTC 2010] <<
        [...snip...]
NetBSD 5.99.39 (GENERIC) #0: Fri Nov 12 10:52:06 UTC 2010
        
builds%b7.netbsd.org@localhost:/home/builds/ab/HEAD/vax/201011120000Z-obj/home/builds/ab/HEAD/src/sys/arch/vax/compile/GENERIC
MicroVAX 3800/3900
        [...snip...]
Thu Nov 11 14:30:03 PST 2010


Is SIMH storing the date in localtime where NetBSD expects UTC? (But even 
that doesn't really explain the 24-hour difference.)

I pawed through the GENERIC kernel config, but didn't see anything like 
RTC_OFFSET (like in i386/amd64).

I'd be happy to post the dmesg or any other diagnostic information that 
might help.

--
Tyler