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Article #4407

Oldest File?

#4407
From: j... Joe Dellinger
Date: Sat, 08 Sep 1990 07:04
44 lines
2209 bytes
	While cleaning up some disks, we discovered this file that has
the oldest modification date on our system:

 1 hanauma> ls -la .info
-rw-r--r--  1 toldi          36 Jul 28  1978 .info
                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^
 2 hanauma> cat .info
another one of those damn Canadians
 3 hanauma> 

	Somebody replaced someone else's (a Canadian student's) .plan with
this file as a joke; when it was discovered it wasn't deleted but instead
was moved to .info . Somehow this file has managed to survive over all the
intervening 12 years, while being transferred from a PDP-11 to a VAX
to a Convex C-1!

	I'm curious: is this an unusually old file to still have on the
system? Do you have an older one? Does anybody have a file that dates
unchanged back into the 60's, for example, that has been on active file
systems the entire time?

	The official rules:

1) The file must have continuously resided on active disks from the
stated date until the present. (Disregarding occasional power failures,
system upgrades, disk repartitionings, and the like.)

2) The file must not have been edited or modified in any way since the stated
date.

3) The date must be legitimate.

	There are two categories:

Oldest file fitting the rules.

Oldest file created and continuously living under UNIX fitting the rules.

What amazingly important information does your Methuselah file contain?
\    /\    /\    /\/\/\/\/\/\/\.-.-.-.-.......___________
 \  /  \  /  \  /Dept of Geophysics, Stanford University \/\/\.-.-....___
  \/    \/    \/Joe Dellinger j...@hanauma.stanford.edu  apple!hanauma!joe\/\.-._
************** Reading News again, when I should be writing my thesis... *******
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Path: mbox-mo1.pugleaf.net!gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!snorkelwacker!bionet!agate!shelby!helens!joe
From: j...@hanauma.Stanford.EDU (Joe Dellinger)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Oldest File?
Message-ID: <996@helens.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 8 Sep 90 07:04:55 GMT
Sender: ne...@helens.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Stanford University, Department of Geophysics
Lines: 44
Posted: Sat Sep  8 08:04:55 1990
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