[continued from previous message]

the current wall time is FOR THE PURPOSES OF THAT VCR. But, your bedside
clock likely bears *some* relationship to "actual" time -- even if you
may have DELIBERATELY set it incorrectly (e.g., 5 minutes fast).

If you have configured the system to have a means of determining the
wall/human time for itself, then you are absolved of any further
responsibility for that task. And, resigned to living with its
notion of wall time. E.g., if I can consult WWVB to get a time
fix (or an NTP server), then the system will "know" what the current
time is, without your assistance.

If this reference isn't yet available (i.e., you haven't set the
alarm clock in your bedroom), then you are clueless as to the
actual time (or even your notion of it). I can provide an
estimate of that time -- as a convenience to you by noting
stored (system-time, wall-time) tuples prior to the outage -- but
recognize that it is just a guess (cuz I have no real way of knowing
if the wall time was "correct" when I last checked it!)

But, you can always alter that, even if I think your actions are
in error. (but you can't dick with my notion of system time
or the rate at which it passes)

These tend to be "human time" events (broadcast schedules, HVAC
events, etc.). Most "system time" events are short-term and don't
make sense spanning an outage *or* aren't particularly concerned
with accuracy (e.g., vacuum the DB every 4 hours).

I have a freerunning timer that is intended to track the passage of
time during an outage (like an RTC would). It can never be set
(reset) so, in theory, tells me what the system timer WOULD have
been, had the system not suffered an outage.

Assuming it does not roll-over during the outage.

Big/wide counter. If it "wraps", I can tell -- as long as it
doesn't wrap past it's previous value. I.e., a 32b counter lets
me incur a ~100 year outage. :>

(I suspect you'll have to replace a lithium cell before that
becomes a problem)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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