> dumb-question: why couldn't VCRs get the time from the TV signal?
Later VCRs have that feature...
Huh, but a computer without time would be confusing indeed. A process would ask the OS, "What time is it?", "0:00", it can't even sleep for 5 seconds because the hardware clock will never tell the OS "it's 0:00:05 now" -- if the OS counts itself (doing something rudimentary like, "well it's a 1 GHz CPU, let's increment the counter every billion cycles"), then it's implemented a clock!
Later VCRs have that feature...
Huh, but a computer without time would be confusing indeed. A process would ask the OS, "What time is it?", "0:00", it can't even sleep for 5 seconds because the hardware clock will never tell the OS "it's 0:00:05 now" -- if the OS counts itself (doing something rudimentary like, "well it's a 1 GHz CPU, let's increment the counter every billion cycles"), then it's implemented a clock!