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Date:      Sat, 11 Jul 1998 10:52:38 +1000 (EST)
From:      Peter Jeremy <peter.jeremy@alcatel.com.au>
To:        hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   PPS device
Message-ID:  <199807110052.KAA07523@gsms01.alcatel.com.au>

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Is anyone using a PPS device with FreeBSD?  I notice that -current
includes support for a PPS source attached via a parallel port.

For some time, I have been using a PPS source via DCD on a serial port
(if anyone wants the patches to sio.c, let me know).  One problem with
this approach is jitter - firstly, there's the general interrupt
latency (I'm not sure how to measure this, but I'd assume it's in the
10's of usec on a 486) and secondly interrupt masking via spl().

One approach I have been considering is to have a hardware counter
counting the number of (eg) usec from the 1pps transition time and
read it as an 8-bit number via the parallel port.  This would reduce
the unfiltered jitter to <1usec.  Based on a quick read of
draft-mogul-pps-api-02.txt, this either hasn't been considered, or
has been discarded.  Does anyone have any comments on this idea.

BTW: Anyone looking for a good stand-alone reference might like to look
at the master reference oscillators in digital cellular base stations -
the GSM standard (which also covers DCS-1800 and DCS-1900) requires
a 0.05ppm or better reference in the base station.  I suspect DAMPS and
CMDA also have similarly tight tolerances.  Whilst these references are
expensive new, if you know someone in the industry, you might be able
to acquire one from a junked board.

Peter
--
Peter Jeremy (VK2PJ)                    peter.jeremy@alcatel.com.au
Alcatel Australia Limited
41 Mandible St                          Phone: +61 2 9690 5019
ALEXANDRIA  NSW  2015                   Fax:   +61 2 9690 5247

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