Make SK98 Internet Timesynch Work Again 2

[garybritt]

If you are like me and have one or more computers that you used to use the SK98 internet timesynch feature to automatically synch your computer's system clock with the official time as per various government/military internet time servers, then you may have also experienced that this feature seemed to stop working quite some time ago. At least it did for me in the souteastern USA.

I had thought that the problem was simply one of SK98 setup or registry entries, or of growing incompatibility with the evolving win98 and win2k operating systems I use on my computers. This however was not the case!!!

Out of frustration I recently tried a stand alone windows program called eztimesynch to perform this adjust the computer time function. EZ TimeSynch works fine, but isn't freeware any longer. Further, it just bugged me that I couldn't get SK98's timesynch function to work. Well, in playing with EZ TimeSynch I realized that even EZ TimeSynch couldn't get the time from the NTP Servers that are available for selection in the SK98 Timesynch function. Since EZ Timesynch did work with other NTP Time Servers however, I knew it wasn't the EZ TimeSynch program that was the problem. That made me think, "I wonder if SK98's timesynch function could get the time from the time servers that EZ TimeSynch uses"? See EZ TimeSynch uses as its default NTP Time Servers that are not available selections in the SK98 Timesynch function.


The problem was there was no way to add a new NTP Time Server Name to the pre-programmed list of NTP Time Servers that are built into SK98. Not wanting to be stopped by this minor limitation, and being just a little bit to anal with my spare time, I have found the solution!!!

The list of NTP Time Servers that SK98's timesynch function shows you in the timesynch setup, are built into the timesynch.dll file located in SK98 program directory. I pulled out my handy file hex editor/viewer and went to work. I took the first time server name from EZ TimeSynch which is "time.nist.gov" (no quotes) and I began searching the names of NTP Time Servers contained inside of SK98's timesynch.dll file. I needed to find one that was EXACTLY the same number of letters and periods as in time.nist.gov. I located a suitable entry in the SK98 timesych.dll file and then proceeded to use my hex editor to change the matching length entry to the aforesaid time.nist.gov . I made a backup copy of timesynch.dll first of course.

Next I launched SK98 and then opened the SK98 Timesynch setup window. I scrolled through the list of available time servers, and bingo right there in alphabetical order was the entry I had changed to time.nist.gov . I selected time.nist.gov as my time server and then told SK98 to synchronize my computer's clock now. BINGO, it synchronized my computer's clock, made the appropriate adjustments, and properly displayed the correction made!!!!

Life is good and SK98's timesynch function is alive and well. EZ Timesynch contains a list of several NTP Time Servers all of which should work with SK98, so in theory I could edit the SK98 timesynch.dll file several more times to add several more WORKING time server choices. However, as long as time.nist.gov continues to work, I'll save that project for another day.

Hope this info is helpful to anyone wanting to get the SK98 timesynch function working again. I could upload the modified timesynch.dll file if people wanted. If I did so you would have to put the modified file in your SK98 program directory and then be sure to select the time.nist.gov selection as the NTP time server for SK98 timesynch to use.

Should work no problem. Did for me on Win98 and Win2K. XP has its own built in internet timesynch function so XP users may not need SK98's function to work.

Good PIMing with SK,

Gary Britt

 

[Rich224422]

Hi GaryBritt. Just posted a thank you but left off one of the T's in your handle. Sorry! But thanks for the tip on the time cync thing.

I too am in the Southeast Central part of USA (Arkansas). I am not sure that mine is not working? I did have to surf through several of the listed sources to find one that worked. clock.isc.org appears to work as I don't get an error messge. Not sure how to test it though. Would changing my computer clock manually to incorect time, and then running cync, work?

I will try the edit of that dll (After the backup first of course). Thanks again for the tip?

Rich

 

[garybritt]

Hi Rich, thanks for the kind words.

When SK98's timesync function is not working for the reasons I described above. You don't get an error message. The only place an error message would show is at the bottom of the timesynch setup window when clicking on the sync time now button. When it doesn't work. No message appears. When it does work a message will appear that says corrected time by X seconds. Even if X is zero.

To verify for sure, you are on the right track in your thinking. Just use control panel or whatever to pull up the adjust date time function window and set your clock backwards by 1 hour or by 12 minutes or whatever you like. Just make sure you clock's date for the day is correct. Then call up SK98's timesync function and press the sync time now button. If its working the time should be changed back to the correct time, and a message stating something like "corrected time by 12 minutes on xxxxxx date" should appear at the bottom of the sk98 timesync setup window.

If you find when testing in this manner that any of the built-in sk98 ntp time server settings still work, please let me and everyone here know. I tried about 10 of them and none of them worked, but I didn't try all 50 of them (or whatever the total count).

Thanks,

Gary Britt

 

[garybritt]

Rich,

Just tested clock.isc.org and it does not work. At least not here. If it works a message regarding "corrected time by X" appears at the bottom of the sk98 timesync setup window next to the words "Last Synchcronization"

Gary

 

[Rich224422]

Hey Gary>
I guess some guys just live right!! I changed the time back one hour as you suggested. Then surfed through the list. Seems like whenever I have a trial and error it is always the last choice I make (If any work) that is the right one. So....went to the end of the list in the sync. drop downs and found one on the third try.

I believe this one will work: sundial.columbia.edu. At least it worked for me Gary and I got the little message advising the clock had been reset as you said I would.

Worth repeating. Sync appears to work at sundial.columbia.edu

Happy sidekicking all! Rich

 

[garybritt]

sundial.columbia.edu

Worked for me as well. Good catch. If you find any more that work, post them here. I've started an SK Memo with the ones we know work.

Gary Britt

 

[james33]

Hiya Gary,
Great work.
For me here in Ireland, salmon.maths.tcd.ie works

It would be interesting to see if it worked for you there.

If it doesn't work there then I wonder would it have anything
to do with ISPs not allowing requests from certain other ISPs?

Regards
Jim

 

[garybritt]

Hey Jim,

salmon.maths.tcd.ie

Works here as well and I've added it to the list. I don't think it is an ISP issue. I believe it is a function of:

1. SK98's list of timeservers is out of date and some time servers on the list no longer exist or their web address has changed.

2. Some time servers have moved to a more recent NTP (Network Time Protocol) protocol for receiving requests for and then delivering the time to other computers and I don't know if NTP v4 is backward compatible with what SK98 uses in timesync.dll. It might be compatible, but I don't know.

3. The demand for time from time servers has grown considerably since 1998 when SK98 was released, many servers are no longer available to the public (I believe this is the case for the US Naval Observatory Servers). Instead a system of Non-Public Time Servers Has been setup to feed time to a larger system of Public time servers.

So Far shown below are the SK98 built-in listings known to still work. (As people try other listings report the ones that work, we can continue to build this list. - People using WinXP should note that WinXP has its own built-in timesync function and they could use that function and disable SK98's timesync function):

sundial.columbia.edu
salmon.maths.tcd.ie

For more info on NTP and time servers available on the internet:

http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/ntp.html

http://ntp.isc.org/bin/view/Main/WebHome

http://ntp.isc.org/bin/view/Servers/WebHome#Finding_A_Time_Server

The following servers from EZTimeSync's built-in listing of servers should also work:

time-a.nist.gov
time-b.nist.gov
time-a.timefreq.bldrdoc.gov
time-b.timefreq.bldrdoc.gov
time-c.timefreq.bldrdoc.gov
utcnist.colorado.edu
time.nist.gov
time-nw.nist.gov
nist1.datum.com
nist1-dc.glassey.com
nist1-ny.glassey.com
nist1-sj.glassey.com


To use a server use a server not shown in SK98's built-in list:

1. You either have to edit the Timesynch.dll file as described above or (I just discovered this);

2. You can open the Timesync Setup window in SK98 and in the time server box you can PASTE IN the name of a time server that is NOT on the drop down list. Timesync doesn't add this pasted in entry to the drop down list, but it does seem to use it. Also, SK98 Timesync REMEMBERS the pasted-in entry when you shutdown SK98 and start it up again. So people wanting to still use this feature but hesitant about editing the timesync.dll file so that a new entry appears in the drop down list can use the paste a new entry into the time server box shown in Tools|Synchronize|Timesynch Setup.


Gary Britt