Uneasy about Easyshare

I started using my old Kodak Easyshare CX7430 camera more.  It's a lot smaller than the Nikon D40 SLR.  AND the Kodak has an optical viewfinder unlike many other cameras (cellphones et. al.) so you don't have to rely on a dim screen outside held at arms length.

But I discovered a flaw today - the date setting won't go above 2025.  I guess Kodak figured that people would ditch a 21 year old camera ?  Not me !

I went to take these two pictures (Mann's had more Paczki on Thursday):

 

But the camera wouldn't power up, no juice, the last time I changed the Nimh cells was later 2025.  So I had to take out the cells and replace them - I did this quickly hoping that the date might be kept but nope !  I should have gotten an AC adapter (coulda, shoulda, woulda, but dint, Chuck).  So I ended up setting the year to 2025 (and 4 AM rather than 1600) as can be seen from this directory:

everything was fine until yesterday afternoon

Then I tried an experiment: set the date and time to 2025/12/31 23:59.  Then waited a minute.  The camera year then does roll over to 2026/01/01 00:00. 

The gambit: now change the month and day to February 20 and away we go !

BZZZZT !   Nope !   When I try to change the date it rolls back to 2004 (the last pic on the directory)

Then I saw this on reddit confirming the problem:

https://www.reddit.com/r/VintageDigitalCameras/comments/1idn995/years_past_2025_on_kodak_easyshare_models/?rdt=61239

Oh well, it was worth a try.   I did locate a firmware update but now I have to find the computer where I installed the Easyshare software.  And I'll only do it if it is reversible.   And it might not even fix the problem.

Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm