date is 1934 on reboot

[Brendan J Simon <brendan.simon@bigpond.com>]

When I reboot my PowerMac G4 450MHz machine, the date is set to 1934. 
I'm using ntpdate and ntp but the date does not seem to be reset.  If I 
run ntpdate manually then it does get set.  Why can't I get the correct 
date from ntp on startup ??

Is there a battery on the mother board to maintain the real time clock 
when the power is turned off.  How can I tell if the battery is OK.  Is 
it measurable with software ?  If so, what packages do I need to install ???

Thanks,
Brendan Simon.