randy@athena.mit.edu (Randall W Winchester) (04/26/91)
I recently picked up a Smartwatch, sometimes advertised as a no-slot clock for the IBM PC. It's a clock calendar chip mounted in an empty 28 pin DIP socket along with a small power source. The idea is that it can be mounted on a pc board by removing a ROM from its socket and replacing it with the Smartwatch. The ROM then plugs into the Smartwatch. There are plans for mounting the Smartwatch in the C128 for use with GEOS, and GEOS software for setting the time and date, but the installation details, although simple, look unnecessarily messy. In these plans, the Smartwatch gets hooked up to one of the joystick ports from inside the computer, and then glued upside down on a piece of cardboard on an open area of the circuit board. What I'd like to do is plug the thing into a ROM socket the way it's intended to be used. I know that I'll have to write some programs to access it. If anyone reading this has tried this and gotten it to work, please let me know how you did it. Also, does anyone have some on-line data about this chip (pinouts, etc.) that they would be willing to mail to me or post here? I'll post a follow up message when I get more information. ******************************************************************************* * Randy Winchester * randy@mit.edu * PO Box 1074, Cambridge, MA 02142 * *******************************************************************************