Peculiar CDE Desktop clock behavior

[Eric W. Robertson]

I just noticed some really odd behavior on my OpenVMS Alpha system with respect to the system time as displayed by the DCL SHOW TIME command and the CDE Desktop clock displayed on the left side of the Front Panel.

With respect to time keeping my OpenVMS Alpha V8.3 system is configured thus:

1.) DTSS is disabled (via NCL DISABLE DTSS)
2.) Local time zone was set to United States Eastern Time using SYS$MANAGER:UTC$TIME_SETUP.COM
3.) NTP was enabled and configured to sync up with one of the available NIST internet time servers.

I verified that the system is properly synched within a few fractions of a second to the NIST time server clock by simultaneously viewing the time using the OpenVMS Secure Web Browser with the URI set to http://www.time.gov/timezone.cgi?Eastern/d/-5/java and at the same time using a DECterm window with the SHOW TIME command. So far all is as expected. However, when looking at the analog clock displayed on the left side of the CDE Desktop's Front Panel, I noticed that the minute hand of the analog clock did not show the transition across the minute boundary until approximately 27 seconds AFTER both the DCL SHOW TIME command and the NIST clock displayed in SWB indicated it should have. Has anybody else noticed this?

Eric

[Volker Halle · Accepted solution]

Eric,

no, I've never noticed this.

I have tried this on an OpenVMS I64 V8.2 system and I can confirm your observation. Using DECW$CLOCK works fine and that minute-hand moves to the next minute in 'realtime'.

But the small clock in the Front Panel seems to 'lag behind'. In my experiment it was even late by about 55 seconds.

I'm assuming that this clock may only be updated at bigger intervals to minimize overhead and if the update interval timer is not synchronized with the real time, something like this could be explained.

Volker.

[Volker Halle]

Eric,

from the 'Getting Started With the New Desktop' manual:

The clock on the Front Panel is an animated icon.

It would be interesting to know, how often 'animated icons' are being updated.

Volker.

[Steven Schweda]

Yup. It annoys me frequently. I've
repeatedly missed the very beginnings of TV
programs because I can't remember not to
trust the thing. It _looks_ like a clock.

> It would be interesting to know, how often
> 'animated icons' are being updated.

It'd be ok if it were updated only once per
minute, if it were done at the right time in
each minute. Good thing it lacks a second
hand.