What does HackerNews think of Time-Appliance-Project?

Develop an end-to-end hypothetical reference model, network architectures, performance objectives and the methods to distribute, operate, monitor time synchronization within data center and much more...

Language: VHDL

Time Card Mini Adds Pi, GPS, and OXCO to Your PC | Jul 2023
It is call Time4CM4 and it comes from the OCP-TAP GitHub. Not sure how it ended up being called Time Card mini. Here is the full source code for it anyways. https://github.com/opencomputeproject/Time-Appliance-Project...
New atomic clock loses only one second every 300B years | Feb 2022
Expand Context ↕
Facebooks Time Card is a good starting point if you want to start looking into how higher end timing devices are built: https://github.com/opencomputeproject/Time-Appliance-Project...

Afaik its not currently available for purchase, so it is more of a diy route. If you want a standalone unit, it probably wouldn't be too big of hassle to ducktape that Time Card to e.g. Raspberry Pi CM4 or similar module with pcie and drive a display (or whatev) that way. Or that FPGA on the Time Card probably has enough spare capacity to do it directly too, for a simplified architecture (and maybe better hard realtime control).
Open-sourcing a more precise time appliance | Aug 2021
I cannot find any source files for the FPGA code in the repository (no .v .vhd .vhdl files and I can't see anything by looking around manually). The FPGA directory [1] contains some binaries and some documents relating to commercial code from a Swiss firm [2].

I've seen plenty of projects described as open source when the firmware is open source and the hardware is closed but this is the first time I've seen one where the schematics and board layout are open but the firmware is closed. Note that the hardware itself is quite simple, the smart stuff happens in three modules: GNSS receiver, precision clock and FPGA. To me, the contents of the FPGA source code are the only interesting part of this project. Additionally, you won't be able to meaningfully modify or reuse this project without editing the source code.

The hardware module these FPGA binaries seem to be compiled for is described as an AC7100B, the source given for these is a defunct ebay link [3] [4] :-O This project uses two and half grand's worth of atomic clock and the heart of it runs on a module that fell off the back of a lorry!?

[1] https://github.com/opencomputeproject/Time-Appliance-Project... [2] https://www.nettimelogic.com/clock-products.php [3] https://github.com/opencomputeproject/Time-Appliance-Project... [4] https://www.ebay.com/itm/XINLINX-A7-FPGA-Development-board-A...

Edit: I realise this comes across as quite negative. This looks like a neat project, one I would actually use, but only if it were meaningfully open source.

Open-sourcing a more precise time appliance | Aug 2021
Really nice of them to release this. However, unless I'm missing something, the HDL for the FPGA on the Time Card is not part of the release. It looks like it uses a proprietary IP core from NetTimeLogic

https://github.com/opencomputeproject/Time-Appliance-Project...

They do include FPGA bit streams, but it's disingenuous to claim a fully open source release.

Open-sourcing a more precise time appliance | Aug 2021
Expand Context ↕
From https://github.com/opencomputeproject/Time-Appliance-Project...

> Where can I get one?

> […] we are currently working with several suppliers and will have their contact info soon available to allow you to puchase an out-of-the-box ready Time Card.
Open-sourcing a more precise time appliance | Aug 2021
I didn’t want to click this so I assume others here won’t either. Here’s the top points they highlight themselves:

- Facebook engineers have built and open-sourced an Open Compute Time Appliance, an important component of the modern timing infrastructure.

- To make this possible, we came up with the Time Card — a PCI Express (PCIe) card that can turn almost any commodity server into a time appliance.

- With the help of the OCP community, we established the Open Compute Time Appliance Project [1] and open-sourced every aspect of the Open Time Server.[2]

1. https://www.opencompute.org/projects/time-appliances-project...

2. https://github.com/opencomputeproject/Time-Appliance-Project...