Basically, I'm saying that the GNU/Linux kernel is bad if it comes across something it doesn't handle gracefully. If, for instance, the battery were completely dead and the RTC said it was 1927, most OSes should and would gracefully choose to do something different - BSD, for instance, uses the time of the last update of the filesystem. This is why several GNU/Linux distros, I'm guessing, boot on other machines but not on this specific machine. If you booted a NetBSD disk which said something like this, then that would explain what's going on:
Code:
WARNING: TOY clock not marked valid
WARNING: preposterous TOD clock time
WARNING: using filesystem time
WARNING: CHECK AND RESET THE DATE!