tcp-ip@ucbvax.ARPA (06/28/85)
From: mills@dcn6.arpa Folks, The professional clockwatchers have decided to insert a leap-second in the broadcast time standards at 23:59:59 UT on 30 June. This happens just about every six months and would naturally be expected to jog our klutzy collection of radio clocks and synchronization protocols. I have declared an Internet Clockwatch Weekend, during which I plan to deploy spy-daemons to watch the radio and power-line clocks closely. First, I would like to see what our radio clocks make of the transition, second what the power grid does and third what the synchronization protocols do. During some part of the ICW our fuzzball clocks will be unstrapped from their respective synchronization reference and will be allowed to free-run. Since the accuracy of the el-cheapo crystals used in the interfaces is only about 10 ppm, this may result in systematic offsets up to a second in timestamps returned from our swamp rats. Dave -------