Hi Eric,

If you're looking to set read, write and ale in your code, you need to reread the bible chapters that discuss the 8051 hardware. The 8051 interface lines are not directly controlled by software, only indirectly through issuing a movx command.

It's time to start reading some apnotes for your rtc chip, most vendors include code for interfacing, initializing, etc. Read and understand, get it working in the example environment, then you can modify it to work with your project's code.

Dennis