On Thu, 4 Jan 2007, Tony Finch wrote: > On Thu, 4 Jan 2007, Zefram wrote: > > > The solution is to just let the clock run, never adjust it, and treat > > it as an independent seconds count. You don't care about it showing > > the wrong time, because you don't treat its output as an absolute time. > > Instead, collect your data on how far out it is (or rather, what absolute > > time -> output function it is computing) and add the epoch in software. > > Any number of users of the same clock can do this without treading on > > each other's toes. > > I think that's what I was suggesting :-) > > Tony.
Indeed isn't this Rob's ship's chronometer? Also in the context of the mythical device which has to run many years into the future without referring to external leap-second tables, when interaction is eventually resumed you have more chance of recovering the "true" value of timestamps if it had a chronometer on board and not an incorrectly-set UTC clock. If contact with the device never is recovered, why did it matter what it thought the time was? Peter.
