"slewing" the system clock

[louie at cvl.UUCP]

<for all you do, this one's for you>

I don't know of a UN*X that does this, but the fuzzball software for PDP11
systems (a RT11 emulator with extensive TCP/IP network development and
debugging tools) does this.  Co-operating fuzzball systems exchange "hello"
message packets with each other, which among other things, provide time
synchonization.  Dave Mills, the author of the fuzzball software, could tell
you all about it.  I believe that there is an ARPANET RFC around somewhere
that describes the algorithms invovled.  The general idea is that if the
host is within a couple of minutes of the correct time, there is a slewing
of the clock, but when the host first comes up, the clock is immediately
reset.  We've got a zoo of about 5 of fuzzballs and other systems that do
this, and its nice not to have to worry about setting the time of your
system everytime you boot it.

Dave Mills' arpanet address is <mills at dcn1> if you'd like to contact him.
If you don't have arpanet access, I can forward a message to him manually.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Louis A. Mamakos - Computer Science Center (Systems Staff) - Univ. of Maryland
Internet: louie at cvl.ARPA     uucp: ...!{seismo,ihnp4,allegra}!rlgvax!cvl!louie