At 09:23 PM 5/6/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>A friend of mine, who is a very experienced programmer, but knows nothing
>about PIC's (at least I don't think he does) has offered to make a bet with
>me as follows:  He is willing to bet, any amount I want to name, that he
>can write a program which can figure out the clock speed of the computer it
>is running on.
>
>To rephrase it, he thinks that he can figure out, in software, the number
>of MIPS of the machine he is running on.
>
>Since he is used to machines that have operating systems, with system
>clocks and that sort of thing available to users, he might be able to do it
>on those.  But I do not think there is any way whatsoever on a PIC to do
>this.  (No peripherals -- just the raw chip running, with his program).
>
>However, he is very experienced, and I have lost bets with him before.  So
>even thought it seems to me to be a sure thing, I am a bit hesitant to
>bet.  Can any of you experts think of a way to do this????

If you place limitations on the problem ...

- PIC core
- no EEPROM
- no WDT
- no interrupts
- no port pins
- no ADC
- no sleep mode
- no inputs at all (possible trickery!)
- no outputs at all (ditto!)

The processor is only powered/reset up ONCE and must REPEATEDLY
re-calculate he clock speed or MIPS and place it into (say) a 32 bit
register.

Specify some accuracy (5% or whatever). It must be in units of 1/second.

I don't think that can be done. But all the same, betting more than his
answer is worth to you for fun might not be wise. ;-)

Best regards,

Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..."            "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

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