Hello,
I often turn on my Windows 10 PC when it is not connected to the Internet.
But when the unconnected PC turns on, it shows the correct date and time.
How is that possible?
Virtually every PC motherboard BIOS has a clock in it that runs continuously even when the system is off or even unplugged from AC power. It runs off a coin cell battery.
It will provide the time until Windows (or Linux or whatever boots) and queries a more accurate source (like an NTP time server) to set the time.
Thank you for the information AK6DN !
I thought my PC was PYSCHIC, and reading my mind !
That works OK until the battery dies. When the computer boots with a dead battery (and not connected to AC or the Internet) the time is always some particular default time set in the hardware. For example, it might be something like January 1, 2002. That is quite annoying because you have to manually set the time.
Real Time Clock which actually has a crystal inside that vibrates/oscillate at a hz frequency. There is all sorts of clocks on the motherboard and ironically only one of them tells the time well they all track time because they are timers but only one of them is responsible for actually telling the time to the user.
You know what's a little scary?
...We're actually reaching that "switching" point in time where technology figures out information like this is.. and will be kinda difficult to try to figure out, soon... and that you would just have to accept the fact that the computer knows what today's date and time really is...
it is pretty scary where computers are going i agree.
Computers are scary really like the machine that is using light and electricity to do stuff but its pretty uncanny on a deeper level that these things have been going for a while like 60 - 70 years give or take in its modern form but there is immense foresight projecting involved with them.
So they have said through out that time scale that we know we can do X or Y in many instances before its possible to even do those things with computers and then when we see tech come its because they knew its was achievable.
Like example they knew they could render 3d when only 2d was achievable but the tech was not strong enough yet that is why we got ray casting engines in the early days of 3d.
Raytracing if you really look at it is about being real time so soon it will be that the computer is actually generating stuff in real time not from code well it will be code but its going to be more like a brain that is making stuff on the fly like how we think so move an object would be like how we process moving an object and also more optimized than how we process it.
Soon they will be able to smell us and actually know what our names are because they will be sentient like a human, i think the whole premise will be that cyborgs actually become a reality and that soon we will be living inside the computer and will not be able to discern the difference because it will be so real.
We are still a long way from that but its going to happen.
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Paraplegics have been controlling computers with their brain implants since the 90s i remember as a kid seeing it on the news and that the person had a wireless implant that could control his mouse and keyboard with his brain.
Now they want to make it so that the computers are actually integrated into us as an extra dimension so what we are seeing with AI now is all precursor to that and they are pushing it as an external entity that can help us evolve but soon it won't be the case it will be a 1:1 connection.
I don't really feel like integrating with the AI tbh i like my own brain just some food for thought. I also like the reality we are in now not a AI artificial one.
Like i think in the next 50 to 100 years it will be a problem and that people will want to integrate with this stuff because it will be a better dopamine filled experience but it is also fake and a facade.
The clock in the computer is just an ordinary digital clock that is powered by a battery. No different than a digital watch or the clock in your phone. Are those scary also?
The first computers needed a clock because there wasn't an Internet. The clocks in Windows had their time set by the built-in clock on the motherboard. That built-in clock was powered by a battery. Its initial time had to be set manually by the user. If the time drifted it had to manually set again by the user. The clock kept its time continuously as long as its battery was working. If the battery died then the time was only kept when the computer was powered on. The dead battery had to be replaced for the clock to continue to work when the computer was not plugged in or powered by its own battery.
When computers started being connected to the Internet they only needed the built-in clock when they were first powered on. Once they were connected to the Internet they kept their time synchronized from places on the Internet.
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