18,19,20 (76; $4C). BRKKEY is turned off at powerup. BREAK key abort status is flagged by setting BIT 7 of 53774 ($D20E). See the note on the BREAK key vector, above. 18,19,20 12,13,14 RTCLOK Internal realtime clock. Location 20 increments every stage one VBLANK interrupt (1/60 second = one jiffy) until it reaches 255 ($FF); then location 19 is incremented by one and 20 is reset to zero (every 4.27 seconds). When location 19 reaches 255, it and 20 are reset to zero and location 18 is incremented by one (every 18.2 minutes or 65536 TV frames). To use these locations as a timer of seconds, try: TIME = INT((PEEK(18) * 65536 + PEEK(19) * 256 + PEEK(20) )/60) To see the count in jiffies, eliminate the "/60" at the end. To see the count in minutes, change "/60" to "/360." The maximum value of the RT clock is 16,777,215. When it reaches this value, it will be reset to zero on the next VBLANK increment. This value is the result of cubing 256 (i.e., 256 * 256 * 256), the maximum number of increments in each clock register. The RT clock is always updated every VBLANK regardless of the time-critical nature of the code being processed. A jiffy is actually a long time to the computer. It can perform upwards of 8000 machine cycles in that time. Think of what can be done in the VBLANK interval (one jiffy). In human terms, a jiffy can be upwards of 20 minutes, as witnessed in the phrase "I'll be ready in a jiffy." Compare this to the oft-quoted phrase, "I'll be there in a minute," used by intent programmers to describe a time frame upwards of one hour. Users can POKE these clock registers with suitable values for their own use. The realtime clock is always updated during the VBLANK interval. Some of the other timer registers (locations 536 to 544; $218 to $220) are not always updated when the OS is executing time critical code. Here's one way to use the realtime clock for a delay timer: 10 GOSUB 100 . . . 100 POKE 20,0: POKE 19,0 110 IF NOT PEEK(19) THEN 110 120 RETURN Line 110 waits to see if location 19 returns to zero and, when it does, passes control to the RETURN statement.