[time-nuts] Re: Datum PRS-50 monitoring software

[Stewart Cobb]

In theory the Monitor3 program can automatically figure out the correct
serial port settings to talk to the clock. I've used Monitor3 to talk to a
sick Datum 4040A cesium, and in my experience the auto serial settings
feature rarely worked. The 4040A defaults to very strange serial settings.
IIRC it's 2400 baud 7-E-1. I believe the PRS-50 is based on the same cesium
module as the 4040A and 4065A. You might try entering those serial settings
manually into Monitor3 and see if it connects. If that doesn't work, I
think I have a copy of Monitor2 somewhere, which is supposedly the proper
control program for the 4040A. I never found a copy of the original
monitor.exe. But I don't think any of them do anything fancier than just
implementing the comms protocol in the manual. Someone could probably do
that in Python or similar pretty quickly, and then we wouldn't need to
worry about obsolete DOS programs.

Cheers!
--Stu