Description

Features of TimeSet 7.20

TimeSet has been evolving steadily ever since the first version was released in the summer of 1987. That version and several subsequent ones could only set a computer's clock from the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO) in Washington, D.C. Version 6.00, released in 1990, added ability to use telephone time signals from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, Colorado, making it the first program of its kind able to address more than one atomic time service. This made it possible for computer users in the eastern and western United States to keep down long distance bills by choosing the time service closest to them.

Version 7.20 continues that evolution with a number of new features and supporting utilities:

• TimeSet can now access five atomic clock-based telephone time services on two continents: the USNO and the NIST in the United States, as before, and atomic time services in Sweden (Swedish National Time Service), Austria (Technical University of Graz), and Italy (National Electrotechnical Institute). People in European countries who want to set their computers to an atomic clock no longer need to make a trans-Atlantic phone call. In addition, to these formal services, TimeSet 7.20 can access any number of services that use TimeGen, a companion program in this package that generates time data strings in Naval Observatory format.

• TimeSet 7.20 is designed to interact closely with versions 2.53 and 2.54 (or later) of RighTime (tm), the excellent memory-resident regulator for computer clocks developed by Tom Becker of Air System Technologies, Inc., Dallas. RighTime learns the drift rate in the computer's clock and continuously applies a correction to compensate for it, and it refines the correction each time the computer clock is set. A computer with RighTime installed and trained can maintain system clock accuracy within a second or even a fraction of a second for at least a week. Furthermore, versions of RighTime later than 2.53 provide true 0.01-sec resolution in the DOS clock, in contrast to the normal 0.055-sec resolution. This allows greater accuracy in PC clocksetting than ever before, indeed the maximum accuracy that can be obtained with a computer clock. Life Sciences Software and Air System Technologies cooperated closely during the development of TimeSet 7.20 and RighTime 2.5+, with the result that TimeSet can access several RighTime functions directly.

• In addition to the ability to address five official atomic clock time sources on two continents, users of TimeSet 7.20 can get time from Life Science Software's program TimeGen (tm) version 3.1. TimeGen, part of the TimeSet 7.20 distribution package, is a program that generates time data strings for Universal Time using the Naval Observatory's format. Its purpose is to allow one computer in a local system to get accurate time from an official service, then share it by telephone with many other computers in the local system, in effect making the TimeGen-equipped computer a "substation" of an official atomic time service.

• TimeSet 7.20 is accompanied by a utility called AutoDial, which can be installed memory resident to trigger TimeSet to call a specified time service at a particular time every day. Also included in the TimeSet 7.20 package is the IF2DAY.COM utility by Gary Miller, which can be used to initiate a call by TimeSet during system bootup on a specific day of the week or month.

• Another new feature in TimeSet 7.20 is optional automatic reconfiguration when the time season changes between daylight savings time and standard time, plus ability to calculate the dates when those season changes will occur during the current year. Unlike Version 7.10, which offered automatic season reconfiguration only for users in North America, TimeSet 7.20 also offers this feature for users following the time season rules of Europe and the British Isles.

• TimeSet 7.20 allows custom serial port configuration, making it usable with serial ports up to COM8 and nonstandard IRQs and port addresses.

• Also in response to many requests, TimeSet is now able to save data on your computer clock to a disk file each time you call a time service, allowing clock drift in the computer to be analyzed. It also produces error level codes for use by the DOS ErrorLevel command in batch files.

Registration

TimeSet can be registered with Life Sciences Software for $40.00.Benefits are

• Technical support
• Printed and bound illustrated manual
• Evaluation copy of RighTime
• Discount of next version of TimeSet

Sources

Life Sciences Software

Air System Technologies

RighTime Company (description and demo)

/ Time Software