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Date:      Mon, 29 Oct 2001 22:26:27 -0700
From:      Warner Losh <imp@harmony.village.org>
To:        arch@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: 64 bit times revisited.. 
Message-ID:  <200110300526.f9U5QR701909@harmony.village.org>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 29 Oct 2001 22:09:26 MST." <200110300509.f9U59Q701756@harmony.village.org> 
References:  <200110300509.f9U59Q701756@harmony.village.org>  <613.1004134852@critter.freebsd.dk> 

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In message <200110300509.f9U59Q701756@harmony.village.org> Warner Losh writes:
: Xtals in PCs SUCKSUCKSUCKSUCK.  They are accurate to a factor of 1E-8
: or so.  This is >> 1/(2^64).  When something drifts a second or two a
: day (or even a week or a month), you know it is really bad.

I forgot the punchline:

The error from the variance in your xtal is so far going to swamp the
error from rounding for 1/(2^64) that it isn't a reason to not do it.

After reading the thread, people seem to be under the impression that
the xtals in PCs are consistant or stable.  They are neither by any
stretch of the imagination.

There may be other reasons to not do this, but this isn't one. :-)

Warner

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