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View Full Version : TickTock Atomic Clock for your (Windows, Macintosh) PC



Meerkat
05-02-2003, 10:49 AM
Here is one source (Windows only):
http://www.hiflite.com/nistclk7.html

This is what I use. It's not the best, but it comes from the horse's mouth (Windows & Mac):
http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq/service/its.htm

A couple of points to note:

* This is not a high-accuracy service, technically speaking. For the highest accuracy, progams actually compute and account for network transmission delays to get to a few milliseconds accuracy. This will only set your clock to within 1 second (about 1/2 second - 500 milliseconds - in my experience) of NIST time.

* These programs (the 2nd link especially) generally offer an update interval. PLEASE choose something like every 12 or 24 hours! Otherwise the network congestion could cause NIST to withdraw the service! (Microsoft has a NIST widget with XP and they where forced to set up their own servers to prevent this. Apple may have done likewise since they have a widget in OS 8.5 and later)

Note for Mac users: The 2nd link above has a pdf document that has instructions for properly configuring a Mac to use it's own NIST widget, which is available in OS 8.5 and later.

Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson )
05-02-2003, 01:07 PM
Sorry Meerkat, Apple has had an option of a server setting its clock on its O/S for years. Its real easy just click one button in the clock set up. Just another thing that's cool about Mac's never having to worry about setting the clock :D

[ 05-02-2003, 02:09 PM: Message edited by: Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson ) ]

Meerkat
05-02-2003, 01:15 PM
Well JOE - you might want to read the doc I pointed to. :mad:

Wild Dingo
05-02-2003, 01:26 PM
I gotta ask again!! :mad: ...what the flamin eck does anyone want with a clock on this thing? :rolleyes: ...let alone an "atomic" clock? whats it gonna blow a nice mushroom cloud over my screen or what? :eek:

Sorry Meer me ol mate... I personally cant understand peoples obsession with time watching! :rolleyes:

Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson )
05-02-2003, 01:28 PM
I know meerkat I can read
Note for Mac users: The 2nd link above has a pdf document that has instructions for properly configuring a Mac to use it's own NIST widget, which is available in OS 8.5 and later. I just like to showoff how cool Mac's are and have always been - don't be mad -- big kiss tongue.gif

Nicholas Carey
05-02-2003, 05:19 PM
The best NTP -- Network Time Protocol -- software for Windoze is Tardis 2000 (http://www.kaska.demon.co.uk/), named after Dr. Who's phonebox/time machine.

It runs as a Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP service (no user interface) and starts auto-magickally when the machine boots. Or, Tardis can be run as an ordinary application.

Incredibly simple to configure.

Tardis can also be configured to act as an NTP server of any strata -- if you have a home network, it will keep all the machines' clocks on your home network in synch with each other and the NIST atomic clock to within 1 millisecond.

You can read more about NTP at the Network Time Synchronization Project (http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/ntp.html) and at the NTP home page (http://www.ntp.org/index.html)

htom
05-02-2003, 11:19 PM
Dimension4 ( http://www.thinkman.com/dimension4/ ), freeware, has worked well from windows95 onwards, although I have not tried it on XP. I don't think that it adjusts the actual hardware clock tracking rate, only measures the error and resets the clock to match whichever time server you point it at (it has a huge list included.)