Clock Question

Michael · Feb 4, 2004

Mike wrote:

I'm sure I could write you a program to do something like that pretty
quickly. The question is, what clock is going to read data from a serial
port?

An even more important question is, isn't it going to drive you nuts
knowing that any clock you drive from the serial port is going to be
milliseconds (yes, milliseconds, and probably many of them!) off target?

Just think about it. You'll end up sitting in your rocking chair, staring
at the clock, thinking, "Damn, that last tick should have happened
earlier... damn, that one too... damn, that one too... damn, that one
too..."

In the morning, your wife will find that you've spontaneously combusted,
and all that's left is your slippers, part of your robe, and what many
people will come to believe was simply an urban legend all along.

"Jim Thompson? Hell, son, he's like Bob Widlar. He never really existed,
it's just a bunch of stories that got handed down through generations of
engineers."

Is that what you really want, Jim? Even your kids would begin to believe
the legend after a while. One day, your daughter would recount the story of
how you died: "Well, dad had bought this JATO rocket at the swap meet, and
he welded it to his old Impala one day... You can still see the hole in the
side of South Mountain where he augered in."

Trust me. What you want is a Westclox Big Ben. They're simple. They're
cheap. They're probably not made any more. But I'm sure you can find one on
Ebay. They need to be reset every week. But who cares? You'll never look at
one of them and say, "Damn, that last tick should have happened earlier..."

-- Mike --

I've gotten this brand of logic from many people over the years, Jim.
Don't listen.
My first self-setting clock was the Heathkit Most Accurate Clock, a-way
back in the 80's. Most people who saw it were not impressed: "Whaddya
need that kind of accuracy for??" was the usual response. Well, I
confess I _am_ a clock bigot - have been since my time in the A.F. back
in the 60's when I was responsible for our H.P. cesium beam-driven world
time clock - but I didn't get the Heath clock because of a necessity for
split second accuracy. I got it because it was cool.

After studying the Heath clock's schema for upteen months I decided I
could do it better and cheaper. I had to learn microcontrollers first,
chose the Z80B because it was readily available, cheap, and a freeware
assembler was available. That whetted my appetite, set me to learning
an ancient Motorola NMOS chip. And that's what I used for my clock. I
built it in 1994 and it's been running ever since.

No, we don't need split-second accuracy. That comes as gravy from a box
that doesn't need resetting even when the bad ol' spring-ahead-fall-back
disruptions occur. That's what I love, not having to reset my clocks
several times/year simply because some doofus decided that the sun gets
out of whack WRT the correct - read "human" - biorhythm.

Michael · Feb 4, 2004

Tom Gross wrote:
(snip)

I have a CASIO Waveceptor Watch that attempts to get synched up with
WWV in Fort Collins every night. That might be your cheapest
solution.

WWV? Or should that have been "WWVB"?

Jim Thompson · Feb 4, 2004

On Wed, 04 Feb 2004 13:58:45 GMT, Michael <NoSpam@att.net> wrote:

Mike wrote:
I'm sure I could write you a program to do something like that pretty
quickly. The question is, what clock is going to read data from a serial
port?

An even more important question is, isn't it going to drive you nuts
knowing that any clock you drive from the serial port is going to be
milliseconds (yes, milliseconds, and probably many of them!) off target?

Just think about it. You'll end up sitting in your rocking chair, staring
at the clock, thinking, "Damn, that last tick should have happened
earlier... damn, that one too... damn, that one too... damn, that one
too..."

In the morning, your wife will find that you've spontaneously combusted,
and all that's left is your slippers, part of your robe, and what many
people will come to believe was simply an urban legend all along.

"Jim Thompson? Hell, son, he's like Bob Widlar. He never really existed,
it's just a bunch of stories that got handed down through generations of
engineers."

Is that what you really want, Jim? Even your kids would begin to believe
the legend after a while. One day, your daughter would recount the story of
how you died: "Well, dad had bought this JATO rocket at the swap meet, and
he welded it to his old Impala one day... You can still see the hole in the
side of South Mountain where he augered in."

Trust me. What you want is a Westclox Big Ben. They're simple. They're
cheap. They're probably not made any more. But I'm sure you can find one on
Ebay. They need to be reset every week. But who cares? You'll never look at
one of them and say, "Damn, that last tick should have happened earlier..."

-- Mike --

I've gotten this brand of logic from many people over the years, Jim.
Don't listen.
My first self-setting clock was the Heathkit Most Accurate Clock, a-way
back in the 80's. Most people who saw it were not impressed: "Whaddya
need that kind of accuracy for??" was the usual response. Well, I
confess I _am_ a clock bigot - have been since my time in the A.F. back
in the 60's when I was responsible for our H.P. cesium beam-driven world
time clock - but I didn't get the Heath clock because of a necessity for
split second accuracy. I got it because it was cool.

After studying the Heath clock's schema for upteen months I decided I
could do it better and cheaper. I had to learn microcontrollers first,
chose the Z80B because it was readily available, cheap, and a freeware
assembler was available. That whetted my appetite, set me to learning
an ancient Motorola NMOS chip. And that's what I used for my clock. I
built it in 1994 and it's been running ever since.

No, we don't need split-second accuracy. That comes as gravy from a box
that doesn't need resetting even when the bad ol' spring-ahead-fall-back
disruptions occur. That's what I love, not having to reset my clocks
several times/year simply because some doofus decided that the sun gets
out of whack WRT the correct - read "human" - biorhythm.

I've said several times, "This is for fun and pizzazz".

Of course one thing that will NEVER happen is that I would own an
Impala... sheeeeesh, that's a GM product... I've haven't owned an
American automobile since 1977 when I gave up on Ford ;-)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice

480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax

Tom Gross · Feb 4, 2004

"Richard Crowley" <rcrowley7@xprt.net> wrote in message news:<1020vlo49fe6b05@corp.supernews.com>...

Set up one of the machines as the NTP master. Use one of the
several available utilities to sync it to WWV via RF, dialup,
or internet. Still free (assuming internet connectivity.)

yes, I will have to set up one of the XP Pro machines as a master time
server. I can't rely on any of my machines actually being connected
to the web (in this application) but it's really not that important to
me, as long as they think it's the same time down to about a second.

Apparently the two homebrewed machines I have with ASUS motherboards
are consistently running too fast, gaining about 15 seconds per hour.

Bob Stephens · Feb 4, 2004

On Wed, 04 Feb 2004 07:32:21 -0700, Jim Thompson wrote:

On Wed, 04 Feb 2004 13:58:45 GMT, Michael <NoSpam@att.net> wrote:

Mike wrote:
I'm sure I could write you a program to do something like that pretty
quickly. The question is, what clock is going to read data from a serial
port?

An even more important question is, isn't it going to drive you nuts
knowing that any clock you drive from the serial port is going to be
milliseconds (yes, milliseconds, and probably many of them!) off target?

Just think about it. You'll end up sitting in your rocking chair, staring
at the clock, thinking, "Damn, that last tick should have happened
earlier... damn, that one too... damn, that one too... damn, that one
too..."

In the morning, your wife will find that you've spontaneously combusted,
and all that's left is your slippers, part of your robe, and what many
people will come to believe was simply an urban legend all along.

"Jim Thompson? Hell, son, he's like Bob Widlar. He never really existed,
it's just a bunch of stories that got handed down through generations of
engineers."

Is that what you really want, Jim? Even your kids would begin to believe
the legend after a while. One day, your daughter would recount the story of
how you died: "Well, dad had bought this JATO rocket at the swap meet, and
he welded it to his old Impala one day... You can still see the hole in the
side of South Mountain where he augered in."

Trust me. What you want is a Westclox Big Ben. They're simple. They're
cheap. They're probably not made any more. But I'm sure you can find one on
Ebay. They need to be reset every week. But who cares? You'll never look at
one of them and say, "Damn, that last tick should have happened earlier..."

-- Mike --

I've gotten this brand of logic from many people over the years, Jim.
Don't listen.
My first self-setting clock was the Heathkit Most Accurate Clock, a-way
back in the 80's. Most people who saw it were not impressed: "Whaddya
need that kind of accuracy for??" was the usual response. Well, I
confess I _am_ a clock bigot - have been since my time in the A.F. back
in the 60's when I was responsible for our H.P. cesium beam-driven world
time clock - but I didn't get the Heath clock because of a necessity for
split second accuracy. I got it because it was cool.

After studying the Heath clock's schema for upteen months I decided I
could do it better and cheaper. I had to learn microcontrollers first,
chose the Z80B because it was readily available, cheap, and a freeware
assembler was available. That whetted my appetite, set me to learning
an ancient Motorola NMOS chip. And that's what I used for my clock. I
built it in 1994 and it's been running ever since.

No, we don't need split-second accuracy. That comes as gravy from a box
that doesn't need resetting even when the bad ol' spring-ahead-fall-back
disruptions occur. That's what I love, not having to reset my clocks
several times/year simply because some doofus decided that the sun gets
out of whack WRT the correct - read "human" - biorhythm.

I've said several times, "This is for fun and pizzazz".

Of course one thing that will NEVER happen is that I would own an
Impala... sheeeeesh, that's a GM product... I've haven't owned an
American automobile since 1977 when I gave up on Ford ;-)

...Jim Thompson

With all the "Buy American" hoopla currently extant, it would be
interesting to poll how many American engineers drive American cars.
I haven't owned one in decades.

Bob

Chris Hodges · Feb 4, 2004

petrus bitbyter wrote:

"Chris Hodges" <chris_hodges@127.0.0.1> schreef in bericht
news:UASTb.56636$pD4.46232@news-lhr.blueyonder.co.uk...
time > com1 gave me the blank stare also, so I hit return and got
the command prompt back. I can only assume the ascii time string
went to my serial port, but I have no way to check it right now.

if you create a text file containing just a carriage return (test.txt in
my example) then at the dos prompt:
time < test.txt > test2.txt
puts:
Current time is 7:23:20.08p
Enter new time:
into test2.txt, so time < test.txt >com1 should output the time as ascii
to the serial port.

If I have time later I might test with 2 pcs, a cable and hyperterminal.

Writing the time to the serial port is not the problem. You need some kind
of scheduling unless you want to synchronise your clock manualy every time.
Running Linux it's easy. Can be done by a three or four line script starting
a background process. Windows has its own scheduler(s) although I can't
imagine a simple script to run it a the moment. As DOS lacks multi tasking,
writing a scheduler is not that easy. It nervertheless can be done if you
make it a device driver or another resident program. Unless you're running
Linux it's much easier to do the scheduling by the clock itself. Make it
send a kind of a signal to the computer using the serial port. This signal
activates an interrupt routine that replies by sending the system time.

That's certainly true, I was only really replying to the specifics of
DOS output. Personally as I start the pc every day I would probably
just put it in the autoexec to sync once per day, or use 98's task
scheduler to call a batch file. Messy though. My other approach would
be to write something in Delphi (or possibly Visual C for the challenge)
that would work as you suggest.

My linux skills are a long way short of scripting this sort of thing!

--
Chris
-----
Spamtrap in force: to email replace 127.0.0.1 with blueyonder.co.uk

Carl D. Smith · Feb 5, 2004

On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 19:25:40 GMT, Chris Hodges
<chris_hodges@127.0.0.1> wrote:

if you create a text file containing just a carriage return (test.txt in
my example) then at the dos prompt:
time < test.txt > test2.txt
puts:
Current time is 7:23:20.08p
Enter new time:
into test2.txt, so time < test.txt >com1 should output the time as ascii
to the serial port.

If I have time later I might test with 2 pcs, a cable and hyperterminal.

Or you could do the following command (at least it works on my
Win98 and XP machines):

echo. |time

That's the pipe character before time, and don't leave out the
period. It pipes the carriage return produced by the "echo."
command into the time command.

JeffM · Feb 5, 2004

time < test.txt > test2.txt
puts:
Current time is 7:23:20.08p
Enter new time:
into test2.txt, so time < test.txt >com1
should output the time as ascii to the serial port.
Chris Hodges

Writing the time to the serial port is not the problem.
You need some kind of scheduling
petrus bitbyter

Set up a job in Scheduled Tasks
(the task GET_TIME executes TIME_IS.BAT hourly).

Carl D. Smith

echo. |time
That's the pipe character before time,
and don't leave out the period.
It pipes the carriage return produced by the "echo." command
into the time command.

:: TIME_IS.BAT writes the current time to the serial port.
@echo. | TIME | FIND "is" > COM1:
(One executable line; auto-deletes the temp file.)

Chris Hodges · Feb 5, 2004

Carl D. Smith wrote:

Or you could do the following command (at least it works on my
Win98 and XP machines):

echo. |time

That's the pipe character before time, and don't leave out the
period. It pipes the carriage return produced by the "echo."
command into the time command.

I think that's what I was looking for when I set out to refresh myu mind
on redirection! Thanks for the reminder Carl.

--
Chris
-----
Spamtrap in force: to email replace 127.0.0.1 with blueyonder.co.uk

K Wannamaker · Feb 7, 2004

Yep! That pic does sum up it up! couldn't have done better if you wanted
too. It's a shame that this is my basement!

Fred Bloggs wrote:

Garrett Mace wrote:

Indeed...I think the site can be summed up by the following picture:
http://www.leapsecond.com/images/LabJan2001r.jpg

Right- and forget it when this guy bids against you on EBAY- he pays
anything to get what he wants- must spend $40K annually just for junk
instruments- and a lot of Porsche accessories IIRC.

Ken Taylor · Feb 7, 2004

That's a shameful photo - there's some clear space which could be usefully
filled!

Ken

"K Wannamaker" <kevwan@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:FxYUb.5095$5f.794@read1.cgocable.net...

Yep! That pic does sum up it up! couldn't have done better if you wanted
too. It's a shame that this is my basement!

Fred Bloggs wrote:

Garrett Mace wrote:

Indeed...I think the site can be summed up by the following picture:
http://www.leapsecond.com/images/LabJan2001r.jpg

Right- and forget it when this guy bids against you on EBAY- he pays
anything to get what he wants- must spend $40K annually just for junk
instruments- and a lot of Porsche accessories IIRC.

mike · Feb 7, 2004

Jim Thompson wrote:

Anyone have an idea how one might output their PC clock information
though the serial (or USB) port?

My PC clock is NIST-synchronized and it would be nice to have a wall
clock with that accuracy.

...Jim Thompson

The easiest thing to do is plunk down $15 and buy a commercial digital
clock with a wwvb receiver built in. Mine are all marketed by
Oregon Scientific, but I'm bettin' they're available at Radio Shack.

Assuming by "wall clock" you mean something that you look at and don't
really need anything closer than a second...

The next easiest thing to do is plunk down a buck for a garage sale pc
and set it's clock to the master clock on your main pc. Just resync it
periodically so it stays in sync within the resolution of your display.
My PC is hooked into the stereo to play MP3s and has a BIG clock display.
Here's the batch file:
rem this runs on music at startup to sync things up.
rem This sets local time to main system time.
net time \\main /SET /YES

Or you can just broadcast the time over your network. I use the mailbox
protocol, just because that was all that worked with the OS I had at the
time. I'd probably try to use named pipes if I did it again.
Have a process running at the destination to catch the time
and display it.

Or you can write a basic program to stuff the time out any of the ports.
The time is easy. Depending on your OS, accessing the ports may be a
hassle. You still need a display.

Having said all that, I find that I never need to know the time more
accurately than what my watch says. I keep a stock of "chill pills"
for use when I think I might need more resolution.
The impulse soon passes ;-)
mike

--
Return address is VALID.
Bunch of stuff For Sale and Wanted at the link below.
Toshiba & Compaq LiIon Batteries, Test Equipment
Honda CB-125S $800 in PDX
TEK Sampling Sweep Plugin and RM564
Tek 2465 $800, ham radio, 30pS pulser
Tektronix Concept Books, spot welding head...
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Monitor/4710/

Rich Grise · Feb 8, 2004

build a uP clock controller with an Ethernet port on it, plug
it into your DSL hub, and get the time from one of the timeservers.

Why count on your computer, unless you've logged onto NTP when
you installed Linux. ;-)

Cheers!
Rich

"Mike" <mike@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:yv8cyvzbosfq$.11rpt5yhnd3pz.dlg@40tude.net...

On Mon, 02 Feb 2004 15:37:24 -0700, Jim Thompson wrote:

Anyone have an idea how one might output their PC clock information
though the serial (or USB) port?

My PC clock is NIST-synchronized and it would be nice to have a wall
clock with that accuracy.

...Jim Thompson

I'm sure I could write you a program to do something like that pretty
quickly. The question is, what clock is going to read data from a serial
port?

An even more important question is, isn't it going to drive you nuts
knowing that any clock you drive from the serial port is going to be
milliseconds (yes, milliseconds, and probably many of them!) off target?

Just think about it. You'll end up sitting in your rocking chair, staring
at the clock, thinking, "Damn, that last tick should have happened
earlier... damn, that one too... damn, that one too... damn, that one
too..."

In the morning, your wife will find that you've spontaneously combusted,
and all that's left is your slippers, part of your robe, and what many
people will come to believe was simply an urban legend all along.

"Jim Thompson? Hell, son, he's like Bob Widlar. He never really existed,
it's just a bunch of stories that got handed down through generations of
engineers."

Is that what you really want, Jim? Even your kids would begin to believe
the legend after a while. One day, your daughter would recount the story
of
how you died: "Well, dad had bought this JATO rocket at the swap meet, and
he welded it to his old Impala one day... You can still see the hole in
the
side of South Mountain where he augered in."

Trust me. What you want is a Westclox Big Ben. They're simple. They're
cheap. They're probably not made any more. But I'm sure you can find one
on
Ebay. They need to be reset every week. But who cares? You'll never look
at
one of them and say, "Damn, that last tick should have happened
earlier..."

-- Mike --

Rich Grise · Feb 8, 2004

"mike" <spamme0@juno.com> wrote in message news:4024C270.5010701@juno.com...

Jim Thompson wrote:
Anyone have an idea how one might output their PC clock information
though the serial (or USB) port?

My PC clock is NIST-synchronized and it would be nice to have a wall
clock with that accuracy.

...Jim Thompson

The easiest thing to do is plunk down $15 and buy a commercial digital
clock with a wwvb receiver built in. Mine are all marketed by
Oregon Scientific, but I'm bettin' they're available at Radio Shack.

I got mine at Walgreen's.

Cheers!
Rich

Jim Thompson · Feb 8, 2004

On Sun, 08 Feb 2004 04:27:48 GMT, "Rich Grise" <null@example.net>
wrote:

"mike" <spamme0@juno.com> wrote in message news:4024C270.5010701@juno.com...
Jim Thompson wrote:
Anyone have an idea how one might output their PC clock information
though the serial (or USB) port?

My PC clock is NIST-synchronized and it would be nice to have a wall
clock with that accuracy.

...Jim Thompson

The easiest thing to do is plunk down $15 and buy a commercial digital
clock with a wwvb receiver built in. Mine are all marketed by
Oregon Scientific, but I'm bettin' they're available at Radio Shack.

I got mine at Walgreen's.

Cheers!
Rich

And you didn't read my response. I live in a small, very rocky canyon
(actually part of the mouth of an extinct volcano

480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax

Spehro Pefhany · Feb 8, 2004

On Sun, 08 Feb 2004 09:02:50 -0700, the renowned Jim Thompson
<thegreatone@example.com> wrote:

And you didn't read my response. I live in a small, very rocky canyon
(actually part of the mouth of an extinct volcano , so the WWVB
signal level is too low.

...Jim Thompson

Maybe you pick up the signal when it reflects off the planes going
overhead. ;-)

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com

John Fields · Feb 8, 2004

On Sun, 08 Feb 2004 22:01:56 GMT, Spehro Pefhany <Spehro Pefhany
<speffSNIP@interlogDOTyou.knowwhat>> wrote:

On Sun, 08 Feb 2004 09:02:50 -0700, the renowned Jim Thompson
thegreatone@example.com> wrote:

And you didn't read my response. I live in a small, very rocky canyon
(actually part of the mouth of an extinct volcano , so the WWVB
signal level is too low.

...Jim Thompson

Maybe you pick up the signal when it reflects off the planes going
overhead. ;-)

---
If they're reflecting WWVB they must be blocking out the sun for quite a
while as they fly by!

--
John Fields

Jim Thompson · Feb 8, 2004

On Sun, 08 Feb 2004 22:01:56 GMT, Spehro Pefhany <Spehro Pefhany
<speffSNIP@interlogDOTyou.knowwhat>> wrote:

On Sun, 08 Feb 2004 09:02:50 -0700, the renowned Jim Thompson
thegreatone@example.com> wrote:

And you didn't read my response. I live in a small, very rocky canyon
(actually part of the mouth of an extinct volcano , so the WWVB
signal level is too low.

...Jim Thompson

Maybe you pick up the signal when it reflects off the planes going
overhead. ;-)

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

Sno-o-o-o-ort ;-) (That's an inside joke that only long-term lurkers
will recall

480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax

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