[net.micro] IBM BIOS timer tick

how@SU-ISL.ARPA (08/13/85)

(please excuse multiple postings, having difficulty from here...)

you asked,
	
	I have a question about the IBM BIOS Timer routine: Do any programs out
	there care if the timer value returned from the BIOS doesn't match the
	time-of-day value returned by the MS-DOS "get time of day" function
	call?
	In writing my own CLOCK$ device driver, I am keeping time independently
	of
	the BIOS and the external 8255. If, for example, the BIOS time counter
	runs slow because of missing the 55ms ticks, but the time reported by
	MS-DOS stays accurate, will that throw anybody off?
	
	If you know of programs which compute time-of-day directly from the BIOS
	instead of going through DOS, or know of other considerations here,
	please
	answer this in net mail -- I'll post a summary if it's interesting.
	
	Thanks, as they say, in advance...
	
								-- Allan Pratt
	

two years ago i wrote a new clock driver for my pc and used it until i recently
sold it. i never had any problem with the times getting out of whack, but
then i never use anything but development software anyway. a friend of mine
who uses my clock and is an avid `collector,' however, has never reported any
problems to me, and he would, if there were any. so don't worry about it--
if it causes any problems, you should probably junk the offending program since
it might well try to do boneheaded things like destroying hard disks it doesn't
understand.
i assume you have yours working. if not, you can have mine-- it's only 160
bytes but only works for the ast cards.


				--	Dana How
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