JPH1011162A - Real-time clock device and alarm interruption control method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To make it possible to place an alarm interruption function in operation at specific time on a specific day without interposing processing by software by using year, month, and day alarm information as operation condition information of an alarm interrupting function. SOLUTION: A real-time clock 18 is equipped with an hour, minute, and second counter register, a year, month, and day counter register, an hour, minute, and second alarm register, and a year, month, and day alarm register. Whether year, month, and day alarm information is used as operation condition information of the alarm interrupting function is set with environment setting information and the year, month, and day alarm register is so switched that it can be accessed only when year, month, and day alarm information is set as the operation condition information of the alarm interrupting function. Consequently, a user can selectively operate time management for initiating an alarm interruption at specific time on a specific day and time management for initiating an alarm interruption at arbitrary time of every day.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a real-time clock device and an alarm interrupt control method which are preferably applied to, for example, a personal computer having an automatic power-on function for automatically turning on power at a designated time. The present invention relates to a real-time clock device and an alarm interrupt control method capable of selectively operating a time management based on only a conventional hour, minute, and second and a time management considering a date when only a particularly simple configuration is added. .

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, various notebook-type or palm-top type personal computers which are easy to carry have been developed. Many personal computers of this type have an alarm power-on function, for example, in which a user does not operate a power switch himself, but automatically turns on a system power supply at a predetermined power-on time. If this alarm power-on function is used, the system operation can be started unattended at an arbitrary time. For example, when a personal computer is used as a LAN server in an office or the like, a server is used every morning for work hours. Can be automatically started.

[0003] Such system management based on time is realized by a real-time clock (RTC) provided in a personal computer generating an alarm interrupt. The real-time clock is a clock module having an original operation battery, and a static RAM (CMOS) that is always supplied with power from the battery.
Memory). And this static RA
M is used for storing environment setting information indicating the system operating environment including the power-on time.

[0004] The environment setting information is set / changed on a setup screen provided by an application program that is executed and controlled by the CPU.
FIG. 7 shows an example of this setup screen.

[0007] As shown in FIG. 7, the setup screen includes an environment setting item 40 for operating the alarm power-on function. In the environment setting item 40 of the alarm power-on function, it is possible to specify whether the alarm power-on function is enabled (used) or disabled (not used). When the alarm power-on function is enabled,
The operating time can be further specified.

FIG. 8 shows a register configuration of a real-time clock. The alarm interrupt occurrence time (hour, minute, second) for realizing the alarm power-on function specified on the setup screen shown in FIG.
The alarm information is stored in the hour alarm register, minute alarm register, and second alarm register, respectively. The specification of the validity / invalidity of the alarm power-on function is stored in the control register B (bit 5). The hour counter register, minute counter register, and second counter register store the absolute time (hour,
This register is used to count minutes, seconds).

In the real-time clock having such a register configuration, an alarm interrupt is generated according to the principle shown in FIG. That is, the hour, minute, and second indicated by each counter register is compared with the hour, minute, and second alarm information stored by each alarm register, and the comparison result is the same, and is stored by the control register B (bit 5). Generates an alarm interrupt when the valid / invalid setting of the alarm interrupt is valid.

However, in the conventional real-time clock, the operating date (year, month,
Day) was not provided.
When an alarm interrupt is generated at a specific date and time, in the process of processing the alarm interrupt, the year, month, and day indicated by the year counter register, the month counter register, and the day counter register in the real-time clock, and the user held in any area. There is a problem that a process of comparing the desired date with software by software must be interposed.

There is also a type in which a year counter register, a month counter register, and a day counter register are independently secured in a real-time clock, and an alarm interrupt is generated according to the principle shown in FIG. That is, the date, month, day, hour, minute, and second indicated by each counter register is compared with the date, month, day, hour, minute, and second alarm information stored by each alarm register. ), An alarm interrupt is generated when the validity / invalidity specification of the alarm interrupt stored by the method is valid.

However, a real-time clock having a configuration for generating an alarm interrupt based on such a principle has a problem that a function used conventionally, such as performing a predetermined process at a predetermined time every day, cannot be used. there were.

[0011]

As described above, according to the conventional real-time clock, when an alarm interrupt is generated at a specific date and time, the year counter register, the month counter register and the There has been a problem that a process of comparing the date indicated by the counter register with the date desired by the user held in any area by software must be interposed.

Further, in a real-time clock which independently secures a year counter register, a month counter register and a day counter register to generate an alarm interrupt at a specific date and time, the real-time clock which has been conventionally used is provided at a predetermined time every day. There is a problem that a function such as performing the above processing cannot be used.

The present invention has been made in view of such circumstances, and enables selective operation of the conventional time management based only on the hour, minute, and second and the time management considering the date. It is an object to provide a real-time clock device and an alarm interrupt control method.

[0014]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention provides a real-time clock device having an alarm interrupt function for generating an interrupt at a predetermined time, an hour-minute-second counter register for counting hour-minute-second, A year / month / day counter register for counting, an hour / minute / second alarm register storing hour / minute / second alarm information for setting the hour / minute / second for operating the alarm interrupt function, and a date for operating the alarm interrupt function. A date alarm register for storing date alarm information for setting;
An environment setting information register for storing environment setting information for setting whether to set the date and time alarm information stored in the date and time alarm register as operating condition information of the alarm interrupt function, and the hour / minute / second counter When the hour / minute / second indicated by the register matches the hour / minute / second alarm information stored in the hour / minute / second alarm register, the date / time alarm information is referred to the environment setting information and the operating date / time information of the alarm interrupt function is referred to. Is detected, and when the operating condition information is obtained, only when the date indicated by the date counter register matches the date alarm information stored in the date alarm register. An alarm interrupt control means for operating the alarm interrupt function is provided.

In the present invention, whether or not the date and time alarm information is used as the operating condition information of the alarm interrupt function is set by the environment setting information. If the date and time alarm information is not the operating condition information of the alarm interrupt function according to the environment setting information, the hour, minute, and second indicated by the hour, minute, second counter register and the hour, minute, second alarm register are stored as before. An alarm interrupt is generated when the hour, minute, and second alarm information matches. On the other hand, when the date / time alarm information is set as the operating condition information of the alarm interrupt function according to the environment setting information, the date / time indicated by the date / time counter register and the date / time stored in the date / time alarm register are further stored. It is detected whether or not the alarm information matches, and an alarm interrupt is generated only when the information matches.

Thus, the user can selectively operate time management such as generating an alarm interrupt at a specific date and time and conventional time management generating an alarm interrupt at an arbitrary time every day.

[0017]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows a system configuration of a computer system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 1, a computer system according to this embodiment comprises a CPU 11, a system controller 1
2. System memory 13, BIOS-ROM 14, keyboard controller (KBC) 15, system timer (PIT) 16, power supply controller (PSC) 17, real-time clock (RTC) 18, display controller 19, and video memory (VRAM) 22 ing.

The CPU 11 and the system memory 13
CPU local bus 1 including 32-bit data bus
1A. The CPU local bus 11A is
Via a bus conversion circuit in the system controller 12,
It is connected to a system bus 11B of the ISA specification including a data bus of 16-bit width. A BIOS-ROM 14, a keyboard controller (KBC) 15, a system timer (PIT) 16, a power supply controller (PSC) 17, a real-time clock (RTC) 18, and a display controller 19 are connected to the system bus 11B.

The system controller 12 is a gate array for controlling memories and I / O in the system. The system memory 13 stores an operating system, an application program to be processed (including a utility program), user data created by the application program, and the like.

The BIOS-ROM 14 has a system-BI
This is for storing an OS and a VGA-BIOS, and is constituted by a flash memory so that a program can be rewritten.

The real time clock (RTC) 18 is
This is a clock module having a unique operation battery, and has a CMOS static RAM (CMOS memory) to which power is constantly supplied from the battery. This static RAM is used for storing environment setting information indicating the system operating environment. Then, the real-time clock 18 generates an alarm interrupt at a predetermined timing based on the environment setting information stored in the static RAM. The register configuration of the real-time clock 18 and the principle of generating an alarm interrupt are features of the present embodiment, which will be described later.

The display controller 19 includes an LCD 20 and a C
It is for controlling display of the RT 21, receives display data from the CPU 11 via the CPU local bus 11 </ b> A, and writes it into the video memory (VRAM) 22.

FIG. 2 shows a configuration diagram of the real-time clock 18. As shown in FIG. 2, the real-time clock 18 includes two registers, ie, a register 181 and a register 182. Since the configuration itself is exactly the same as the configuration of the real-time clock provided in the conventional personal computer, compatibility is guaranteed.

The register 181 is used as a control register for performing internal timing control, interrupt / count control, and the like. The register 182 is used as a counter register for counting absolute time and an alarm register for storing alarm information. FIG. 3 shows a register configuration of the real-time clock 18 including the register 181 and the register 182 used in this manner.

As shown in FIG. 3, the real-time clock 18 of this embodiment newly secures a year alarm register, a month alarm register, and a day alarm register. The date alarm register is mapped to the same address as the date counter register. The date / time alarm register is switched so that it can be accessed only when it is set as operating condition information of the alarm interrupt function. Whether or not the contents of the date alarm register is set as operating condition information of the alarm interrupt function is stored in a predetermined bit of the control register C.

FIG. 4 shows the bit configuration of the control register C. As shown in FIG. 4, bit 1 of the control register C contains information for setting whether or not to use the date alarm register as the operating condition information of the alarm interrupt function, which is a feature of the present embodiment. Is stored. Therefore, when information indicating that the date / time alarm register is used as the operating condition information of the alarm interrupt function is stored in bit 1 of the control register C, the index of the real time clock 18 is stored in the register of the real time clock 18 using the indexes 7 to 9. When accessed, the access destination will be the date alarm register. As a result, the register index is not changed at all. The information for setting the validity / invalidity of the alarm power-on function is stored in bit 5 of the control register B as before.

FIG. 5 shows a setup screen for setting environmental setting items for operating the alarm power-on function provided in the personal computer of this embodiment.

As shown in FIG. 5, the setup screen includes an environment setting item 30 for operating the alarm power-on function. This setup screen is
It is provided by an application program or the like that is executed and controlled by the CPU 11.

In the environment setting item 30 of the alarm power-on function of this embodiment, it is possible to specify whether the alarm power-on function is valid (use) / invalid (not use), and the date setting of the date is valid. Can be specified. When the alarm power-on function is enabled and the date setting is enabled, the operation date and operation time can be further specified. On the other hand, when the alarm power-on function is enabled and the date setting of the date is disabled, only the operation time needs to be specified. And
This setting is respectively stored below.

(1) Enable / Disable of alarm power-on function Bit 5 of control register B. (2) Validity / invalidity of date setting of date The bit 1 of the control register C.

(3) Operation date of alarm power-on function Alarm register (4) Operation hour-minute-second hour-minute-second alarm register of alarm power-on function This allows the user to automatically turn on the power at an arbitrary date and time. (To generate an alarm interrupt) or to turn on the power at a predetermined time every day.

In the real-time clock in which the register value is set as described above, an alarm interrupt is generated according to the principle shown in FIG. That is, the hour, minute, and second indicated by the hour, minute, and second counter registers are compared with the hour, minute, and second alarm information stored in the hour, minute, and second alarm registers, and the year indicated by the year, month, and day counter registers is also determined. The date is compared with the date information stored in the respective alarm registers. (1) The hour, minute, second and hour, minute, second alarm information match.

(2) The date and time and the alarm information do not match, or the date and time alarm information is not the operating condition information of the alarm interrupt function. (3) Valid / invalid of alarm interrupt is valid.

When all the conditions are satisfied, an alarm interrupt is generated. Thus, according to the real-time clock of the present invention, it is possible to select time management based on only the previous hour, minute, and second without any need for intervening processing by software. Can be supported.

[0036]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, the date and time alarm information is used as the operating condition information of the alarm interrupt function, so that the alarm can be performed at a specific date and time without any software processing. The interrupt function can be activated, and the environment setting information can be used to set whether or not to use the date and time alarm information as the operating condition information of the alarm interrupt function. Thus, various functions using the conventional alarm interrupt function can be continuously operated, and their compatibility is completely ensured.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an exemplary view showing the system configuration of a computer system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an exemplary view showing a configuration of a real-time clock according to the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is an exemplary view showing a register configuration of a real-time clock according to the embodiment;

FIG. 4 is an exemplary view showing a bit configuration of a control register C in the real-time clock according to the embodiment;

FIG. 5 is an exemplary view showing a setup screen for setting environment setting items for operating an alarm power-on function provided in the personal computer of the embodiment.

FIG. 6 is an exemplary view showing the principle of generating an alarm interrupt according to the embodiment;

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of a conventional setup screen.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a conventional real-time clock register configuration.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a principle of generating a conventional alarm interrupt.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing the principle of generating a conventional alarm interrupt.

[Explanation of symbols]

11 CPU, 18 Real-time clock (RT
C), 181, 182: Registers in the real-time clock.

Claims (9)

[Claims] 1. A real-time clock device having an alarm interrupt function for generating an interrupt at a predetermined time, an hour-minute-second counter register for counting hours, minutes, and seconds, and a year-month-day counter register for counting years, months, and days. An hour-minute-second alarm register for storing hour-minute-second alarm information for setting the hour-minute-second for operating the alarm interrupt function; and a year-month-day alarm for setting a year-month-day for operating the alarm interrupt function. A date alarm register for storing information; and environment setting information for setting whether the date alarm information stored in the date alarm register is used as operating condition information of the alarm interrupt function. Environment setting information register, and storing of the hour-minute-second and the hour-minute-second alarm register indicated by the hour-minute-second counter register When the hour, minute, and second alarm information matches, it is detected whether or not the date and time alarm information is operating condition information of the alarm interrupt function with reference to the environment setting information, and becomes operating condition information. Alarm interrupt control means for operating the alarm interrupt function only when the date indicated by the date counter register matches the date alarm information stored in the date alarm register. A real-time clock device comprising: 2. The alarm interrupt control means according to claim 1, wherein said date and time alarm information is not operating condition information of said alarm interrupt function. 2. The real-time clock device according to claim 1, wherein the alarm interrupt function is activated when the hour, minute, and second alarm information stored in the register matches. 3. The real-time clock device according to claim 1, wherein the environment setting information includes information for setting enable / disable of the alarm interrupt function. 4. The date alarm register is mapped at the same address as the date counter register, and the date / time alarm information is operating condition information of the alarm interrupt function according to the environment setting information. 3. The real-time clock device according to claim 1, wherein the real-time clock device is switched to be accessible only at a time. 5. The real-time clock device according to claim 1, wherein said alarm interrupt control means is constituted by a logic circuit including a comparator. 6. The hour, minute, second alarm information, year / month / day alarm information, and environment setting information are set / changed on a setup screen provided by an application program executed and controlled by a CPU. 3. The real-time clock device according to 1 or 2. 7. A real-time clock device having an alarm interrupt function for generating an interrupt at a predetermined time, an hour-minute-second counter register for counting hours, minutes, and seconds, and a year-month-day counter register for counting years, months, and days. An hour-minute-second alarm register for storing hour-minute-second alarm information for setting the hour-minute-second for operating the alarm interrupt function; and a year-month-day alarm for setting a year-month-day for operating the alarm interrupt function. A date alarm register for storing information; and environment setting information for setting whether the date alarm information stored in the date alarm register is used as operating condition information of the alarm interrupt function. Environment setting information register, and storing of the hour-minute-second and the hour-minute-second alarm register indicated by the hour-minute-second counter register A first comparator that outputs a signal when the hour, minute, and second alarm information matches, and a date, which is indicated by the date counter register, and a date, which is stored in the date alarm register. And a second comparator that outputs a signal when they match, when the date and time alarm information is not the operating condition information of the alarm interrupt function according to the environment setting information, or from the second comparator. A first logic circuit that outputs a signal when a signal is output; and a signal that instructs activation of the alarm interrupt function when a signal is output from both the first comparator and the first logic circuit. And a second logic circuit for outputting a clock signal. 8. A real-time clock device having an alarm interrupt function for generating an interrupt at a predetermined time, comprising: an hour-minute-second counter register for counting hours, minutes, and seconds; and a year-month-day counter register for counting years, months, and days. An hour, minute, and second alarm register for storing hour, minute, and second alarm information for setting the hour, minute, and second for operating the alarm interrupt function, and mapped at the same address as the year, month, day counter register, and operating the alarm interrupt function. A date / time alarm register for storing date / time alarm information for setting a date / time to be set; and the date / time alarm information stored in the date / time alarm register as operating condition information of the alarm interrupt function. An environment setting information register for storing environment setting information for setting whether or not Switching means for switching the date / time alarm register to be accessible when the date / time alarm information is operating condition information of the alarm interrupt function, and the hour / minute / second indicated by the hour / minute / second counter register When the hour, minute, and second alarm information stored in the hour, minute, and second alarm register matches, it is determined whether or not the date and time alarm information is operating condition information of the alarm interrupt function by referring to the environment setting information. The alarm interrupt function is activated only when the detected and operating condition information is obtained, and the date and time indicated by the date and time counter register matches the date and time alarm information stored in the date and time alarm register. A real-time clock device comprising: 9. A real-time clock device having an alarm interrupt function for generating an interrupt at a predetermined time, comprising: an hour-minute-second counter register for counting hours, minutes, and seconds; and a year-month-date counter register for counting years, months, and days. An hour-minute-second alarm register for storing hour-minute-second alarm information for setting the hour-minute-second for operating the alarm interrupt function, and year-month-day alarm information for setting a date-year for operating the alarm interrupt function And an environment for storing environment setting information for setting whether to set the date and time alarm information stored in the date and time alarm register as operating condition information of the alarm interrupt function. In an alarm interrupt control method applied to a real-time clock device including a setting information register, Detecting a match between the hour, minute, and second indicated by the hour, minute, and second counter register and the hour, minute, and second alarm information stored in the hour, minute, and second alarm register; and detecting a match between the hour, minute, second, and hour, minute, second, and alarm information. A step of determining whether or not the date / time alarm information is operating condition information of the alarm interrupt function by referring to the environment setting information; and A step of detecting whether or not the date and time indicated by the date and time counter register matches the date and time alarm information stored in the date and time alarm register when it is determined that the condition information is obtained. When it is determined that the date / time alarm information is not the operating condition information of the alarm interrupt function, or when the date / time matches the date / time alarm information Activating the alarm interrupt function when is detected.