Patent ID: 6901527

Claim:
A method for synchronizing distributed time stamps in a computer system, comprising the steps of: providing a main Time of Day register in a processor of said computer system driven by a system oscillator; causing said system oscillator to drive an independent register in the computer system that generates a timing pulse with any arbitrary phase with respect to said Time of Day register; coupling said timing pulse to drive a time register in a remote element in said computer system; and providing additional timing facilities in said remote element capable of determining the phase relationship between said Time of Day and said time registers, and said computer system includes said processor which contains said main Time of Day register as a master timing register even though said same system oscillator drives other timer registers at the same rate as the Time of Day is driven; and wherein only the main Time of Day register is observable to processor programs, and wherein each time said one of said other timing registers changes, a timing control packet indicating the state of timing bits of the register is sent to the I/O subsystem of the computer system over a self timed interface to effectively generate a square wave to the I/O subsystem that cycles at the same rate as timing bits of the processor main TOD register, but wherein the phase relationship to the TOD is arbitrary.