Michael G. Schabert wrote:
> >On the other hand, Macintoshes being built the way they are, I'd never use
> >one as an NTP server - only as a client. The Mac's clock hardware sucks,
> >and the system is wired to make clock interrupts the lowest priority
> >interrupt, which means that unless the OS is *exceedingly* careful about
> >interrupt lockouts, the system will lose time like a a man losing blood
> >from his femoral artery.
> 
> Umm, you're slightly amiss on the Mac's clock structure....I've never ever
> had to reset time on a Mac running MacOS more than 5 minutes per YEAR! and
> I've used them since the Mac Plus. My dad's SE just needed its FIRST
> battery replacement.
> 
> What you must understand is that the Mac's clock interrupt scheme was
> written for MacOS and NOTHING else. I must agree that it doesn't meet with
> un*x's "desires" for a nice clock scheme, but under MacOS, it's flawless. I
> won't buy a Volkswagen Beetle and complain that its shocks suck just
> because I can't go Baja'ing with it. It wasn't designed for that, so I
> shouldn't expect it to be suited for it. We, the NetBSD community, also are
> using our Macs for things that they were NOT designed for, so we shouldn't
> expect them to operate the way we'd like them to all the time. It's not
> Apple's fault that we're hacking the hell outta their machines.

Have you ever left an older Mac up and running for a few weeks without
rebooting?  If you also add in a lot of disk activity, you'll definitely
notice some clock lossage.  I seem to remember having my IIci up under
MacOS for about 3 weeks once during college and I lost several _minutes_
on the clock time.

Later.

-- 
Colin Wood                                 cwood@ichips.intel.com
Component Design Engineer - PMD                 Intel Corporation
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I speak only on my own behalf, not for my employer.