time - BASIC Commands

Name:

time

Syntax:

{LET} wordvariable = TIME

{LET} TIME = expression

if TIME > value then

Description:

Use the elapsed time counter variable.

The M2 series have an internal elapsed time counter. This is a word variable called 'time' which increments once per second (at 4 or 16MHz operation). The time variable is designed as an approximate elapsed seconds counter, it is not a real time clock. This seconds counter starts automatically on a power-on reset, but can also be enabled/disabled by the disabletime / enabletime commands.

Note that the background internal timer used to count seconds is also used by several other commands such as servo. Therefore when re-enabling the time variable incrementing function with enabletime (after a disabletime command has previously been used) the first tick could happen any time during that initial one second time period. When the time function is disabled the time variable may be altered safely with a command such as 'let time = 0'.

The 'time' variable will not increment while a sleep command is executing.

Effect of increased clock speed

The time function will increment once every second at 4 MHz or 16 MHz. At 2 MHz and 8 MHz the interval will be 2s, at 32 MHz the time interval will be 0.5s. The number of seconds per time variable increment is shown below -

32 MHz	0.5s
16 MHz	1s
8 MHz	2s
4 MHz	-	1s
2 MHz	-	2s
1 MHz	16s
500 kHz	32s
250 kHz	64s
125 kHz	-	32s
31 kHz	-	128s

Applies To:

08M2, 14M2, 18M2, 20M2

See Also:

Related Create:

Time example

Activates an LED after 10 seconds

Code Example:

let w0 = time + 10

do
  if time > w0 then 
    high B.0
  end if
loop

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Flashing a LED

Flashes a LED every two seconds

Code Example:

'flashes every 0.5 seconds

main:
	setfreq m32
	w0 = time // 2

	if w0 = 0 then
	        high b.0
	else
	        low b.0
	end if

	goto main

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