NTP PICmicro-based clock to serve as a household time server

[GOv]

Hi all, I want to design n build a PICmicro-based clock that will use the PIC's onboard timer to carry out the basic timerVariable increment every second. The overall idea for the clock is as follows:

(1) PC connects to the internet and has its time synchronised to an NTP server.

(2) My PICmicro-based clock connects to the PC via USB and synchronizes its time to the PC time.

(3) Setup a protocol for household time synchronisation, i.e. through some communication medium all other time sources in the house can connect to the PICmicro-based clock and have their time synchronised to it. (This is obviously gonna be tricky!!!!)

I will be coding this in c instead of assembler (I don't suppose any1 knows of a GOOD link I could visit to familiarise myself with how to initialise PIC timers and in particular how to increment my timerVariable using c code). Oh yeah b4 I go any further I do not want to use a RTC IC since I don't require extreme accuracy for my application and besides I wanna use the crystal that is contained within the PIC micro. For the display I want to use 7segment LEDs and I will use BCD IC as middleware between the micro and the 7segment LEDs.

I also want the clock to switch to the battery backup power upon any AC power failure (YES I KNOW THE RTC IC WOULD HAVE BEEN ADVANTAGEOUS IN THIS REGARD....BUT AGAIN I DON'T WANNA USE A RTC IC), upon which I want the clock to continue ticking but no need for the time to be displayed on the 7segment LEDs; does any1 know how to make the PIC micro detect power down status?

The clock will be identified as a USB HID such that the operating system upon detecting it will automatically assign default HID drivers to handle data transmission between the PC and the clock. My biggest challenge has been finding information on how to send the PC time to the PICmicro-based clock (PLEASE HELP!!!!)

As for setting up the household time synchronisation protocol...hmmm i'm still working on how this can be done

Thanks in advance guys