TICK-TOCK CLOCK

by Peter Dackombe

from Your Sinclair #27 (March 1988)

[files TICKTOCK.*]



Ever lost track of time while slaving over a hot Speccy, typing in

unfolding pages of endless hex? Missed a very important rendezvous with

your girlfriend because you have no idea of the time when you were

programming? If so then this program, from ol' Peter Dackombe, is for

you. Type it in, RUN it, and an interrupt driven clock will appear in

the top right-hand corner of the screen that'll give you the current

time to the nearest second. Gosh! And what's more you can still type in

hex, Basic or whatever with the clock running at the same time!



Please Interrupt



Interrupts are specialised instructions that, when used correctly, can

enable you to run two programs simultaneously. What you see is actually

an illusion; the computer is just jumping between the two routines every

50th of a second, so it only seems like the two are running together.

Now you know.



Method



Nothing could be simpler. All you need to do is type in the hex loader

(or load it in if you've got it on tape) and use it to enter the machine

code hex. Then, to get the clock ticking, just:



POKE 64026, seconds

POKE 64027, minutes

POKE 64028, hours (1-12)

POKE 64029, 0 if AM or 1 if PM



Done that? Now type in RANDOMIZE USR 64001 to start the clock. Then,

hours later, when it comes to beddy-byes or rendezvous time just type in

RANDOMIZE USR 64008 to stop time.

