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[Jonathan Hutchins]

On Tuesday 18 November 2003 08:09 am, Dave Hull wrote:

> Why are computer clocks so good at gaining/losing time?

There's gotta be a FAQ on that somewhere, but basically it's because they were 
never designed to keep absolute time, just "relative" time.  They provide the 
metronome beat that the system runs by and make it possible to tell a "new" 
file from an "older" file.  The original P's didn't even store time when you 
shut them off, you had to set it at each startup.  There were piggyback chips 
you could put over the BIOS that had an internal clock and battery, and 
that's when people started expecting their PC to know what time it really 
was.