Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!LOUIE.UDEL.EDU!Mills%udel.edu
From: Mills%udel.edu@LOUIE.UDEL.EDU.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re:  Ask not for whom the chimes tinkle
Message-ID: <8701022126.a011338@Huey.UDEL.EDU>
Date: Fri, 2-Jan-87 21:26:09 EST
Article-I.D.: Huey.8701022126.a011338
Posted: Fri Jan  2 21:26:09 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 3-Jan-87 01:41:57 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 21
Approved: tcp-ip@sri-nic.arpa

Vint,

International clocks are coordinated by the BIH in Paris, so I suppose they
might take a timewarp or to of blame; however, my quarrel is only with
the shadowy figures who design the radio-time broadcast formats. Originally
we could blame the Inter_Range Instrumentation Group (IRIG), which coordinated
the Atlantic Missile Testing Range long, long ago when WWV was in Beltsville,
MD, and kept time with eight buried crystal oscillators. The original WWV
format as developed by the IRIG and still used, provides 54 bits per minute,
but I count only 27 being used in the WWV format (one less in the WWVB format).
The day of year takes 23 bits (in BCD!), the UTC-1 correction three and the
daylight indicator one. The 23 bits are coded minutes/hours/days in BCD
fergawshakes, and this in our age of microcomputers.

Now, if the slate could be wiped clean, it should not be hard to include the
year, leap-second alert, propagation forecasts, UTC-1 correction, daylight
indicator (ugh) and probably lots more, while encoding the whole thing in
the same 54-bit frame with some error-correction info to reduce the vulnerability
to time-warps, as every Heath clock owner knows.

Dave