Importance

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Abstract

A computer date and time clock including an incrementing binary 32 bit register, used to main elapsed date and time in seconds, and an external 1 Hz clock signal, provided by an oscillator, that increments the register. The oscillator and register are both powered by a battery, to make them independent of computer system power. On computer systems having a 32 bit bus, the register can be read or written with a single I/O cycle on the system bus. Operating system software typically performs time calculations using elapsed seconds since a fixed date and time, thus the register count can represent a number of seconds since the fixed date and time. The 1 Hz clock signal is derived from a higher frequency oscillator using a divider circuit, and a reset circuit within the date and time clock clears the divider circuit each time data is stored in the register.

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First Claim