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29 Dec 2023
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Microsync was a computer products company in Carrollton, Texas operating during the mid-1980s making dClock and other products. Here is a bit about their history.
Microsync was a small company in Carrollton Texas founded by Larry and Judy Taugher. They also used an office at 15018 Beltway Dr in Dallas. Their primary product was the very popular dClock board which automatically entered the date and time on a personal computer sparing countless users the drudgery of this mundane task.
Ultimately Larry went on to work for several tech companies including HP where he participated in creation of the USB specification.
dClock was Microsync's primary product and its purpose was the simple yet highly useful task of entering the time and date automatically during the personal computer boot-up process.
The first version of dClock launched around 1984. At that time it was typical for a personal computer to not have a real-time clock to keep track of time and date while the computer was off. So it asked the user to enter that information every time the computer was turned on. This saved the cost of real-time clock circuitry including a battery. It wasn't difficult but after doing it once or more each day it became quite a nuisance. dClock resolved this inconvenience by entering precise time and date information automatically.
dClock was compatible with IBM personal computers using the 8088 processor and the multitude of clone machines available at the time. dClock had a clever way of connecting to the computer without consuming a valuable expansion slot. This was done with a small circuit board which fit between the CPU chip and its socket. Special software interacted with the circuitry to set and read the time and date without interfering with anything else. An on-board battery maintained the time and date even while power was off. Installation was simple and the product was easily worth the $50 price.
A second version called dClock-II was introduced in 1986 which operated the same but changed the way it attached to the computer. dClock-II attached on the back of the floppy disk drive between the drive and its cable. A special software app activated at boot-up time twiddled the bits to the floppy drive to retrieve the time and date.
dClock made product of the month in 1986, see the article below.
dClock was extremely popular with tens of thousands sold. Eventually every computer came with a battery-operated real-time clock feature and dClock became unnecessary.
dClock schematic
dClock-II schematic
I have the manuals for dClock 1 and II but haven't scanned them yet.
; "Microsync dClock brochure")
; "Microsync dClock article")
; "Microsync dClock-II")
; "Microsync dClock-II")
; "Microsync dClock card")
; "Microsync dClock 1")
All of the dClock units were built by Arrick Computer Products in Euless Texas. Roger Arrick soldered the units in a solder pot after they were stuffed by his crew. The units then went through QC, touch-up, the battery was added, and testing. Microsync did random additional testing, packaging and order fulfillment at their Carrollton office.
Arrick also produced small volumes of the other products including Screamer and Boomerang. After the merger in 1988 all products were built and shipped from the Euless office.
Screamer was a board designed to fit in an IBM PC slot to improve the computer speed. It did this by swapping out the CPU chip and some other tricks to manipulate the clock rate as described in the manual. There was some low-volume production of this product and I remember there being a lot of board modifications.
Screamer Manual
Screamer schematic pg 1
Screamer schematic pg 2
Screamer schematic pg 3
Screamer board
Screamer PCB
; "Microsync Screamer")
; "Microsync Screamer")
Boomerang was an internal uninterruptable power supply for the IBM PC and compatibles. It had software which could save the state of the machine and return it after power returned. This was an amazing product and quite a technical accomplishment.
Initially Boomerang was a board that fit in one of the ISA slots with cabling to the power connections on the motherboard. I don't remember how the large gel-cell battery mounted in this initial version - possibly on the back of the computer.
The final version of Boomerang didn't consume a slot and fit in the empty space above the CPU chip. A fancy bracket held Boomerang's switching power supply board with all its MOSFETs. The bracket served as a heat sink and heat management, even for the short time needed, was a technical issue. The bracket reached over to where peripheral boards were mounted and attached there. The 6V 2.6AH NP2.6-6 Yuasa battery was also attached to the bracket with double sided tape and/or wire ties. The computer's power connectors were moved from the motherboard over to the Boomerang board, and cables from Boomerang attached to the motherboard.
Software included a resident program which activated upon a NMI (non-maskable interrupt) to invoke the larger program which saved the state of the machine to the hard disk. This process happened very fast, less than a minute if I remember right. Software was the magic of Boomerang. It was all written in Macro Assembler V5.1. The last module written was compatible with EGA video adapters. This was before VGA. It was obvious that keeping Boomerang updated for new hardware would be a huge challenge.
There were many difficulties getting the switching power supply to operate correctly and Larry used the services of ??? to help with the engineering. After Larry left, Roger Arrick took over engineering of Boomerang.
Retail price was $300.
Tandy considered putting Boomerang in the Radio Shack stores and I remember a meeting with big wigs in the Tandy tower downtown Fort Worth. Dell also considered Boomerang and we made a trip to their headquarters. Neither of these deals happened for reasons unknown to me. It's possible management was simply not willing to tackle a project of this size.
Boomerang brochure
Boomerang PCB
Boomerang PCB
Boomerang PCB
Boomerang bracket
Boomerang data
Boomerang prices
I have some pieces of schematics.
; "Microsync Boomerang")
; "Microsync Boomerang")
; "Microsync Boomerang card")
; "Microsync Boomerang card")
In 1988 Microsync was merged into Arrick Computer Products which was owned by Tom. Larry and Judy worked at the building in Euless where dClock production had been taking place. Larry began working on the Boomerang product and had working prototypes but left before it was finished.
