Simple Date/Time Clock for Jornada 720

One great benefit of using the FormatDateTime object is that it spells out the Day of the Week (Thursday today), and the Month (June). This doesn't render with IE11 so you have to see it on the J720...it results when you use the (Date, 1) arguements. Has nothing to do with my chosing some american preference...it is the only option/arguement that prints DAY OF WEEK...which I find greatly beneficial especially on long weekends when one loses track of days...comprenez-vous?? My wife really likes it too, we have one MP900c near our Big screen TV downstairs and one upstairs...in the master bedroom...sure beats the electronic alarm clock which lacks DAY of WEEK, Day of Month, etc.

Power consumption is zip, near nada. I have a small usb voltage/current measuring device placed between the charging block and the DIY inverter usb plug...it measures out at 4.98 volts and 0.85 amps. Thus less than 4.5 watts...the charging block is 2 amp rated and almost imperceptively warm, likewise the inverter board isn't warm at all. That's with your 1 second refresh javascript code. The Jornada uses even less power...my problem with it is keeping it awake as it powers down after 10 minutes. The MP900c displays all day after day as long as it is plugged in, the charge light is a constant green.

We have alot to discuss and share...and we shall do so. There is so much I want to explain, so much value as learning tools in these J720's etc. I have plans for an html based picture slide shows with gifs, etc. Get the tar goop off your 720 and start using it. I am excited about learning the various html/css RGB or Hex color codes...H-bomb makes it fun. Thank you for telling me about that.

Edited by joval 2019-06-28 6:28 AM

Here's a rather poor picture of the vbscript based J720 html date/time clock...I will post some variations in color schemes later...

Edited by joval 2019-06-28 7:42 AM






Attachments
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J720HTML_Clock.jpg (319KB - 0 downloads)

You can disable /extend the screen timeout in the registry. I forget the path off the top of my head though.

So to draw on my suggestion that you can make use of the broader API. You insert the full weekday name by:

Dim dateTimeNow  
Dim iYear, iMonth, iDay, iHour, iMinute, iSecond  

  

dateTimeNow = now()  

iYear = Year(dateTimeNow)  

iMonth = Month(dateTimeNow)  

iDay = Day(dateTimeNow)  

iHour = Hour(dateTimeNow)  

iMinute = Minute(dateTimeNow)  

iSecond = Second(dateTimeNow)  

 

document.write(WeekdayName(Weekday(dateTimeNow)) & ", " & Right(("0" & iDay), 2) & " " & MonthName(iMonth) & " " & iYear & " at " & Right(("0" & iHour), 2) & ":" & Right(("0" & iMinute), 2) & ":" & Right(("0" & iSecond), 2))

Which would give

Friday, 28 June 2019 at 08:40:23

C:Amie,
As my son Jonathan would say, "You are a Genius!" Wow, I am so impressed with the breath of your knowledge. Ok, now I better understand what you were stating.

How can I get the 1 second rewrite on the time seconds...any clue would be appreciated. And can you get AM/PM type 12 hour mode? Thanks for the registry tip on
J720 screen timeout.

Here's an example of playing around with the hex color codes ( I will post the html code later)...

Edited by joval 2019-06-28 5:33 PM






Attachments
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EarthTones ClockJ720.jpg (278KB - 0 downloads)

The 1 second refresh is a bit harder because I can't remember what API level it supports, nor what event handling (if any).

Does this work?

<div id="myDiv"></div> 
 

<script type="text/vbscript"> 

  Dim domDiv 

  set domDiv = Document.GetElementById("myDiv") 

  domDiv.innerHtml = "hello" 

</script>

AM/PM doesn't have a native function, but you can easily make one:

function getAmPm(ByRef dateTimeIn) 

  if (Hour(dateTimeIn) >= 12) then 

    getAmPm = "PM" 

  else 

    getAmPm = "AM" 

  end if 

end function

... and call it via

document.write(WeekdayName(Weekday(dateTimeNow)) & ", " & Right(("0" & iDay), 2) & " " & MonthName(iMonth) & " " & iYear & " at " & Right(("0" & iHour), 2) & ":" & Right(("0" & iMinute), 2) & ":" & Right(("0" & iSecond), 2) & getAmPm(dateTimeNow) )

... and if you want to force a 12 hour, hour instead of a 24 hour, hour value:

function to12Hour(ByRef dateTimeIn) 

  Dim iHour 

  iHour = Hour(dateTimeIn) 

  if (iHour > 12) then 

    to12Hour = (iHour - 12) 

  else 

    to12Hour = iHour 

  end if 

end function

Thank you...Is the J720 up to the Task?? I will test it out later as I have chores and packing to do before my vacation trip. I'm taking the hpc's along and can devote
more time. I think you can see why I took the easy way out on the meta refresh issue and format. I have to study what you've given me to gain
some understanding...yes, sparks my imagination for sure...and I certainly appreciate the help/feedback.

C:Amie

I think I found the fix...I used pocket registry edititor and deleted the key: ExtPowerOff found under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Power folder...and it seems to be staying on indefinitely now. (Of course I made a full backup prior to this change...just in case I guessed wrong).

Now the J720 acts like a full 24/7 Date/Time Clock! A new life begins...for the formerly mothballed HPC...12 years in the coming. Thanks for the clue!

Edited by joval 2019-07-03 2:35 PM

You should probably add in some CSS colour changes to the code, to prevent screen burn. Also be aware that it will obviously shorten the life of the back light because it was never designed to be on 24/7.

Yes, I was wondering about screen burn as an issue...will give that some thought and mix things up. I'll have to read up on the display burn in issue...dstn right? I have plans to upgrade the backlight to LEDs eventually, but hey, I have half a dozen of these
and can afford to find out their limitations...after all for 12 years they've been dormant on a dusty shelf or in a closet. I am really enjoying them in this manner...far more useful to me. Looks like
they only draw about 2 watts in this use...medium screen brightness. Pictures to follow.

Also, does the J720 memory have a limitied number of read/writes...if so I may limit the refresh rate to once per minute. Time will tell (pun ish ment there)!

No it doesn't. It's RAM based rather than NAND based. Unless you are using a CF card, in which case the CF card is NAND based and :. does have a write limit.

NAND doesn't have any read limits.

The javascript way to change the colours would be:

document.getElementById('id').style.backgroundColor = '#00ff00'; 
document.getElementById('id').style.border = '#0000ff solid 1px';

Evidently screen burn in is not a permanent problem with LCD's...if it occurs it is temporary and reversible by displaying a white image to (in my words) bleach it out.
https://lifehacker.com/remove-lcd-image-burn-in-146469
LCD lifetime is about 100k hours...about 10 years continuous use. CCFL lamps last 20 to 40K hours...or approximately 2.5 to 5 yrs continuous use.
https://www.techwalla.com/articles/signs-symptoms-of-lcd-lamp-failur...
If I turn it off at night could be 4 to 10 years. If I replace with leds probably in 5 to 10 years range. Very workable from my point of view...

Ok, essentially no memory wear and tear to worry about then...good. So its a go, n'est pas?

Is there any easy way to get the 720s IE into fullscreen-mode?

I only discovered some weird code examples to do this but no easy button-switch and I wonder if there is any?

Besides that the clock is wonderful.

Happy holidays

Stefan

Edited by dl1av 2022-12-26 4:00 PM

The only thing I could find was this to assist you, but if you saw that, then I don't know where else to refer

I also found this: https://microsoft.public.windowsce.embedded.narkive.com/iDACFLya/und...
but it doesn't exactly help you directly

I imagined that there would be some kind of direct access button or something similiar to do the job.

But let's see how it works and learn something about the operating system

Stefan