[Tinyos-devel] Re: [Tinyos Core WG] time sync interfaces

[Andreas Koepke]

>> I like this interface proposal. Just like there is a LocalTime interface
>> there would be a GlobalTime interface.
>
> Except that PacketTimeSynch does NOT provide global time per se,
> it just allows to convert local time of one mote to that of another one.
> Time synchronization protocols are still needed, and the semantics
> of those is not at all covered. This is just a primitive.
>

Just as I said: there are two possible levels where hardware independence
can be achieved. One is at the global time level that is provided by some
sync protocol. The second is below the sync protocol, providing it with
primitives to achieve a global time sync fast.

>> I'm not so sure that we can provide an interface that enables all
>> available sync protocols to be run on all platforms.
>
> If you look at the avaiable protocols, then PacketTimeSynch and
> PacketTimeStamp pretty much covers all cases and allows you
> to build more stuff on top.

But they might be too generic for a platform at hand. And if each platform
implements a specific incarnation of this (16bit/TMilli, 32bit/32kHz,
63bit/1MHz...) then each sync protocol still needs to be adapted for each
of these incarnations (at least checked for overflows).

Best, Andreas