Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!helios!tamuts!dlb5404
From: dlb5404@tamuts.tamu.edu (Daryl Biberdorf)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.3b1
Subject: Re: RTC precision?
Summary: Yeah!  Is there a way to get more precision?
Keywords: RTC system clock microseconds
Message-ID: <12768@helios.TAMU.EDU>
Date: 27 Feb 91 20:18:21 GMT
References: <1991Feb27.195148.4122@sci.ccny.cuny.edu>
Sender: usenet@helios.TAMU.EDU
Organization: Texas A&M University
Lines: 18

In article <1991Feb27.195148.4122@sci.ccny.cuny.edu> jeffrey@sci.ccny.cuny.edu (Jeffrey L Bromberger) writes:
>I know that in weeks past, there was a big string on how to get an
>accurate timer to deal with times less than one second.  Here's a
>trick question - does the hardware keep track of time less than one
>second in duration?  A VAX (and I know that a 3B1 is *no* vax :-)
>keeps a register that increments every microsecond.  Is there some
>sort of hidden register like that on our machine?

I'd be interested in knowing this information myself.  I just got done
with an assignment for one of my classes where the prof wanted us to time
some procedures and print the results out to hundredths of a second.
I know that the gettimeofday() call modifies one of the two structures
passed to it to contain both seconds and microseconds.  If this is a
BSD thing (and I think it is), has anyone written anything similar
for the 3b1/System V world?

--Daryl Biberdorf,  dlb5404@{rigel,tamuts}.tamu.edu
  Texas A&M University