Boots, BST and the time of day

Whilst it’s been 9 years since I worked there, I’d bet good money that Boots The Chemist’s POS (Point of Sale) system hasn’t changed. In which case, every time it changes from GMT to BST or back again, all the staff have me to thank me for the fact they don’t have to manually change the time on their POS server. Or indeed, just have to correct it at any other time too. Let me explain. Boots, as with many other retailers, uses the IBM (now Toshiba) 4690 Operating System. It’s a hardened but rather ancient OS. The server in each store runs the tills, and the time at the till is provided by that same server. Store staff can manually adjust the time (and date), but nothing happens automatically. It doesn’t even sync to any kind of time server so it’s not always accurate and it certainly doesn’t change for daylight savings time (or back again). Fixing Daylight Savings Twice a year, Boots would tell their store staff to manually change their server time. Inevitably one of the following…