Real Time Clock for Atari 8-bit

[fibrewire]

With all the trouble we go through setting clocks and worrying about batteries, it's amazing that no one has suggested a cart-based or internal mod atomic clock. Home built kits with RS-232 out have been around since the early eighties from Heathkit. WWVB has been around since July 5th, 1963. All we really need is a way to present the clock as an R-Time 8 would, but I'm too out of practice to do anything productive in this department. Does this sound like a good idea?

Super small WWVB receiver and antenna available here

 

 

 

[Justin Payne]

This is a great idea. I wish I had more electronics knowlege. The clock module I have for my ST is pretty big. Something more discrete would be a nice to have.

[charliecron]

Maybe a USB GPS and the ABBUC USB cart....

[Mathy]

Hello Fibrewire

 

If it works in Europe too and if to the Atari it looks like the RT8, I want it!

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

[fibrewire]

Decoding the WWVB signal only requires a handful of TTL logic. The time code is broadcast during a 60 second period at a 1 bit per second ratio. One can decipher by hand the time and date via a blinking LED attached to a decoder. It would be trivial to write a basic program that reads the one pulse per second data and displays a clock, but what I want to know is the best way to attach this to the Atari, but even better how to display it as the R-Time 8 cart?

 

Info and a schematic can be found here

 

On a side note, did you guys know the R-Time 8 works in the right slot of the Atari 800

Edited November 21, 2013 by fibrewire

[Rybags]

IDE +2, SIDE and Ultimate 1 Meg have RTC.

In many cases you need to adjust for DST twice a year anyway.

 

IMO a better development for A8 would be a Wifi module. Then just hit up one of the time websites to sync your clock.

[fibrewire]

IMO a better development for A8 would be a Wifi module. Then just hit up one of the time websites to sync your clock.

 

You're a genius! Not wifi, but a walkie-talkie radio modem that employs a simple semaphore for sharing data between Atari computers, with the WWVB receiver built-in for synchronization. This is a project I can really get into

[Bryan]

My favorite option would be a simple SIO device where you issue a command and get back a time/date string. It could be as simple as a small box in the middle of an SIO cable. I really don't like bulky things hanging off the machine itself.

[Rybags]

Doesn't APE have some sort of "Get time" function ?

 

Really, I don't see much point building something so bulky that only does this one thing. Fair enough, RTCs even in PCs drift in the order of seconds per day but the labour savings of automating correction don't add up for me.