[34S] Ticks

[jebem]

Hi everybody,
Sorry to join this thread so late but I've got my WP-34S very recently.

First, two small remarks on the Owner's Guide:
1) I was checking the most recent "WP-34S Owner's Guide" at the SF repository, and can see that the "Edition 3.1" is the only one available for download - that's the "Manual_wp_34s_3_1.pdf".
I wonder if this is the most up to date version available as a download?
By the way, Walter is proposing a v3.3 in paper format (I've ordered one copy for myself).

2) Concerning the commands usage section, I see the Owner's Guide as a Reference Guide, more oriented to expert advanced users.
However I see an opportunity here to expose the WP-34S to a more broad population if examples of the commands were included as well, like HP and others are doing. This could be an offer in paper format only, to protect the creator's work.

Now, for the TICKS command:
1) Thanks Marcus for your explanation on the HP-20/30B timer interrupts used to generate a precise time tick.

2) As for the TICK command itself, it is very useful for benchmarking code execution as Tugdual has mentioned.

3) I see that the register used for TICKS is reset to Zero when the calculator is powered on, then it is incrementing forever (of course not...) as long as the calculator is powered on. Because the timeout inactivity will kick in in a few minutes and shutdown the calculator, the accumulated value is never to high anyway.

4) Is there a specific reason to have this 100mS time tick other than to support the PSE and printer.DLAY commands?
For sure the TIME and DATE functions are not dependent on this high level TICK value, right?

5) By the way, I have installed the 32768 KHz XTAL in my 34S (HP-30B based), and can only tell that the time is really accurate after 2 weeks of usage (I can't find any skew when comparing to my laptop time).