[time-nuts] Re: When did computer clocks get so bad?

[Bob kb8tq]

Hi

If your wrist watch is holding 3 seconds per year without some sort of external 
correction,  that’s pretty amazing …. 10 seconds a month is doing well.

Bob

> On Sep 29, 2021, at 2:35 PM, Alec Teal <alec at unifiedmathematics.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi there,
> 
> I have a question and I cannot think of anyone better to ask, for a project we need to time some things which are connected to a computer, using NTP and later using a GPS over bluetooth serial ports, we have discovered that computer clocks are terrible
> 
> If you remove a linear drift (for example assuming it ticks at 1.00026 seconds per second) it gets less terrible, and Linux can do this but it is clear that the computer clock doesn't expose this coefficient to the OS to let it compensate, it must be found (eg through NTP) - any ideas why?
> 
> 
> But more concretely, my watch is actually pretty good, it's off by < 3 seconds and hasn't been set probably this year (I don't tend to bother with DST stuff, not for any reason just never get round to it) - when I was growing up and even now wall-clocks are not so terrible that I have to fix them (or NTP does with computers) very routinely.
> 
> My theory is that super cheap crappy quartz clocks are now used in things which can be reasonably expected to be online most of the time, and thus use NTP - my watch cannot (and probably has temperature correction too? Given the varied temps it is exposed to) any truth to this?
> 
> This is a very open ended question I understand, but if clocks were as terrible as I've found every computer and thing I've checked recently, why don't I remember setting wall clocks easily once a week?
> 
> 
> Alec
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