jobusch@isucs1.UUCP (04/16/86)
The Amiga dealer in Marshalltown, IA (Micro Applications) has an interesting
little device for sale called ATIME, made by AKRON TECHNOLOGIES.
ATIME is a device to keep time even while your Amiga is turned off. It plugs
(transparently) into the parallel port. Sells for $49.95 list, but the store
had it on sale of $69.95. (Huh?) Seems to work pretty slick, but it needs
some special code on the Workbench disk; most likely code to read the time
from the little device on power-up.
Has anyone got ideas on how to make a clock backup cheaper than fifty bucks?
What besides a clock chip and a NiCd battery would ATIME have in it? And
how would you read it from the parallel port?
I'm waiting for the schematic to show up in Byte...or on the net!
David L. Jobusch USENET/UUCP : ...{okstate | umn-cs}!isucs1!jobusch
Dept. of Computer Science CSNET : jobusch@iowa-state
Iowa State University
DISCLAIMER: I'm not associated with MicroApplications, Akron Tech.,
Byte, or the Univerisity of Iowa Schmuckeyes. aic@pucc-i (Craig Norborg aka Doc Pierce) (04/30/86)
BEWARE! I guess I should let it be known that you MAY be taking
your Amigas life in your hands if you plug one of these in!!!
A freind bought one from a local store and had lots of trouble with
it (i.e. Clock not working, serial port flakey, etc...) He didn't
think much of it, except for the fact that it only happened when his
clock was plugged in. Well, now his parallel port doesn't work at all,
the company has ignored all letters and calls so far, and he has
a crippled Amiga... From the salesman that sold it, I found out
that there has been lots of problems with this nifty little device!
Also, as for how the parallel port reads it, you have to have
their boot up software in you startup-sequence for it to work! Sounds
like a real hack job to me!
--
Craig Norborg (aka Doc Pierce)
Uucp: { decvax, icalqa, ihnp4, inuxc, sequent, uiucdcs}!pur-ee!pucc-i!aic
{ decwrl, hplabs, icase, psuvax1, siemens, ucbvax }!purdue!pucc-i!aic
USnail: 910 N. 9th street
Lafayette IN 47904mykes@3comvax.UUCP (05/02/86)
In article <1425@pucc-i> aic@pucc-i.UUCP (Craig Norborg aka Doc Pierce) writes: > > BEWARE! I guess I should let it be known that you MAY be taking > your Amigas life in your hands if you plug one of these in!!! > A freind bought one from a local store and had lots of trouble with > it (i.e. Clock not working, serial port flakey, etc...) He didn't > think much of it, except for the fact that it only happened when his > clock was plugged in. Well, now his parallel port doesn't work at all, > the company has ignored all letters and calls so far, and he has > a crippled Amiga... From the salesman that sold it, I found out > that there has been lots of problems with this nifty little device! > Also, as for how the parallel port reads it, you have to have > their boot up software in you startup-sequence for it to work! Sounds > like a real hack job to me! > >-- > Craig Norborg (aka Doc Pierce) >Uucp: { decvax, icalqa, ihnp4, inuxc, sequent, uiucdcs}!pur-ee!pucc-i!aic > { decwrl, hplabs, icase, psuvax1, siemens, ucbvax }!purdue!pucc-i!aic > >USnail: 910 N. 9th street > Lafayette IN 47904 Allow me to add my $.02 as a satisfied A-Time owner. I have had an A-Time backed up clock on my Amiga for a couple of months now, and I have had no problems. However, I do not have a printer connected (I expect that it would work fine though). There are two programs that make A-Time work: SetRTC and ReadRTC, which set the backed up clock and set the amiga clock from the backed up clock, respectively. I did have some problems with a "homebrew" cable that connects my Amiga to my PC, but I have no doubts it was the cable wiring that caused the A-Time not to work (screwed up the time). After two months, again, no problems, works like a champ. When I had the problems with the cable, I called A-Time, and got prompt immediate service. The folks at A-Time also provided me with some Public Domain software that I haven't seen posted anywhere around here, and will be glad to send updates, etc. I am not affiliated in any way with the A-Time folks in any way, just thought I would post a different perception of their product. Maybe I got lucky and got a good one...
kim@mips.UUCP (05/05/86)
>> BEWARE! I guess I should let it be known that you MAY be taking >> your Amigas life in your hands if you plug one of these in!!! >> [ ... ] >> Craig Norborg (aka Doc Pierce) > Allow me to add my $.02 as a satisfied A-Time owner. I have had an A-Time > backed up clock on my Amiga for a couple of months now, and I have had no > problems. However, I do not have a printer connected (I expect that it > would work fine though). [ from Mike@3Com ] I am also very satisfied with my A-Time. I have the serial port hooked up to a Hayes Smartmodem 1200, and the parallel going to an Epson FX-100. No trouble whatsoever with either device. (A-Time was installed in early January, BTW). There *have* been a few times that the ReadRTC routine supplied with A-Time could not read the clock; "jibberish" gets returned for the date and time (this is documented). This has happened about 3 or 4 times since I installed A-Time, and seems to be completely "random" in nature (I've been waiting for 2 months for it to happen again, so I can get more info on the failure-mode, but its been solid all that time). The above problem *is* a pain when it does occur (and also when changing to/from Daylight Saving Time), as once you've executed either SetRTC or ReadRTC, you cannot re-execute either one again without doing a reset (Cntl-Amiga-Amiga), as the RTC has now become "invisible". Sure would be nice to have a way to just reset the port so the RTC is visible again ... anyone know how to do this? Is there a "ResetRTC" routine out there somewhere? Finally, the folks at A-Time (especially Bambi), were very helpful when I was talking to them last December ... I suppose I should talk to them about the above problem, but like I said, I wanted to collect some more specific information on the failure-mode ... /kim P.S. I have no connection with A-Time ... I'm just pleased with their product. -- UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!decwrl!mips!kim DDD: 408-720-1700 x231 USPS: MIPS Computer Systems Inc, 930 E. Arques Av, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 CIS: 76535,25
ross@ulowell.UUCP (Ross) (05/06/86)
In article <490@3comvax.UUCP> mykes@3comvax.UUCP (Mike Schwartz) writes: >In article <1425@pucc-i> aic@pucc-i.UUCP (Craig Norborg aka Doc Pierce) writes: >> >> BEWARE! I guess I should let it be known that you MAY be taking >> your Amigas life in your hands if you plug one of these in!!! ... general dislike of the product ... > >Allow me to add my $.02 as a satisfied A-Time owner. I have had an A-Time > ... general like of the product... If I might also add my 2 cents. I have one of these and have not had a bit of trouble with it, save that the directions were a bit vague. I have an Okimate 20 hanging off of it and I can do graphics dumps without problems. The way the device seems to work is that a read of the time is made by a program that you must insert in your startup, then after one read the device will shut up until a C-A-A. This can be deduced by the fact that you can only read from the device once, if you try twice you get a device not found error; this error is the same one you get if you attempt to read the time without the device present. The device is passive; it does not draw power from the machine, so its really nothing more than an intelligent cable, I doubt that it could damage a serial port. I have no affiliations with any of the above companies. Ross
mwm@ucbopal.berkeley.edu (Mike (I'll be mellow when I'm dead) Meyer) (05/07/86)
In article <1425@pucc-i> aic@pucc-i.UUCP (Craig Norborg aka Doc Pierce) writes: > > BEWARE! I guess I should let it be known that you MAY be taking > your Amigas life in your hands if you plug one of these in!!! Just another note to let people know that I've had mine for months, and had no problem with it. > A freind bought one from a local store and had lots of trouble with > it (i.e. Clock not working, serial port flakey, etc...) He didn't > think much of it, except for the fact that it only happened when his > clock was plugged in. Well, now his parallel port doesn't work at all, > the company has ignored all letters and calls so far, and he has > a crippled Amiga... From the salesman that sold it, I found out > that there has been lots of problems with this nifty little device! This is the only report I've seen of the problem. From your (very brief) description, it sounds like your friends Amiga is as likely to be flakey as his A-Time box. But beware debuggin over the phone (or the net!). > Also, as for how the parallel port reads it, you have to have > their boot up software in you startup-sequence for it to work! Sounds > like a real hack job to me! The hack job was not putting a time of year clock in the Amiga in the first place. Now, given that you've got this piece of hardware that AmigaDOS doesn't know about, and you want to read the time from it and set the system clock whenever you reboot, can you think of a BETTER place to put it than startup-sequence? It's certainly beats having 'echo "Use preferences tool to set the the date."' or whatever was there (I'm GLAD I don't see that anymore!). <mike