hello..timer?

[Guest_imported]

ya, hiya allz...how do I make a timer for a do/loop routine?

I tried this, but seems a lil too much....

LET zz$ = TIME$ss?) (the command to show only seconds)

DO
LET yy$ = TIME$

LOOP UNTIL yy$ = zz$ + &quot;10&quot; '<= no. of seconds


somethin like that....and SLEEP-no go either, man Ive tried it all....any suggestions?

 

[qbasicking]

use the TIMER statement. Try this code.
a = TIMER
DO
LOOP UNTIL TIMER => a+10

 

[qbasicking]

Since you posted a question mark there, i assumed you didn't know this either, this is how to get just the seconds.
zz$ = RIGHT$(TIME$,2)
Also your code wouldn't work. you have to covert the string (zz$ and yy$) variables (zz and yy). You can't add &quot;10&quot; to zz$ or else your result will be &quot;4610&quot;, the 46 was the seconds and the 10 comes after it.
Read up on the VAL statement, this gets the numeric value of a string. (zz = VAL(zz$) and yy = VAL(yy$)), then you can add 10 to it

You also don't need to use the LET statement, I dont' knwo why Qbasic has this

Write another psot if you don't understand somethig that I said.

 

[spudmizer]

Try this

DO
time = TIMER + 1! ( This is One second )
LOOP UNTIL time < TIMER THEN EXIT

 

[MiggyD]

spudmizer,

Have you tried what you just posted? It will not work.

However, qbasicking's code will.
--MiggyD

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that amateurs built the Ark. Professionals built the Titanic.

 

[qbasicking]

he's right, you would have to put the time = TIMER statement before the loop.

 

[qbasicking]

Here's something that you have to watch out for when using TIMER. Don't try to run your code if your computer's clock is nearing midnight, it will freeze.

 

[brisray]

Which versions of QBasic and Windows were they, QBasicKing?

Around two years ago I wrote a program in v1.1 with TIMER and someone said it started behaving weirdly. I found that this was due to the fact that TIMER used the number of seconds past midnight, at midnight it resets itself back to 0.

I found a way around it was to check the date every now and then, when it changed add 86400, (the number of seconds in 24 hours).

I've just checked one of the orignal programs and it no longer works too well. But that's probably because I've moved to windows 2000 and that doesn't like system calls from QBasic at all.

The original program, emails and solutions can be found at

http://members.lycos.co.uk/brisray/qbasic/qtimer.htm

Ray

 

[pebe]

basicking,

TIME$ and DATE$ are calls to Bios, but TIMER is a call to the timer chip - or so I believe.

I did a test loop comparing TIMER with TIME$ and found they are not always in step - probably because DOS under Windows does not access them both at the same time because of the various interrupts Windows uses. That may be the problem why some of your earlier progs do not now work.

Don't rely on DATE$. Instead put the following line in your DO loop to check for zeroing, so it reads:

a = TIMER
DO
If a > TIMER THEN a = a - 86400
LOOP UNTIL TIMER >= a + 10

I've used this on a couple of programs that ran through midnight, with no problems.

 

[qbasicking]

brisray: I have seen programs written in both 1.1 and 4.5 freeze on Windows 3.1 and XP, so it doesn't seem to matter.

pebe: while TIME$ and TIMER get there input from two different sources, they are dependent on each other. So using DATE$ should work, but your code would be more reliable

 

[brisray]

yes, you're quite right pebe your code works better than the dates thing I did. I forgot why I even did the date thing in the first place when I wrote that post. It was to to investigate what happened to the timer at midnight, so I needed to reset the system date after I'd changed the system time to 23:59:50 and let the program run to past midnight.

I know I usually write 6 or 7 lines of code to some peoples 3 but even I ain't that bad.

Ray

 

[Guest_imported]

Nope, he's right. Windows 95 and 98 were nothing more then high level functions on a DOS core, so DOS programs worked fine.

Windows 2000 was based on Windows NT, developed as a stand-alone OS, not on DOS. The DOS Calls in Windows 2000 are emulated - changed then passed through the Windows 2000 Core. Therefore QB - or any DOS program, may have issues on Windows 2000.

 

[logiclrd]

I wrote a FAQ on timing. It's oriented towards somewhat higher precision timing than this, but I believe it covers all issues, including the midnight rollover.

You can click on the following link to reach the FAQ: faq314-917