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Article #553Re: Class project and question
From: bu... Ben Burch
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 1989 21:38
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 1989 21:38
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1472 bytes
-Message-Text-Follows- In article <15...@speedy.mcnc.org>, kaji...@mcnc.org (Lord of Sith) writes... > >Question: anyone know why the VMS system has a clock that starts about >November 15 in the late 1800's? UNIX's clock is a round number like midnight >of January 1, 1970. > > Scott Kajihara November 15, 1858, 00:00 hours if memory serves (I could look it up, but why bother when you can create an amusing error?). This date and time are the base of the Modified Julian Date system. This system was created in the early 60s or late 50s so that the orbital element programs then in use could represent a date that contained all modern planetary observations without wasting as many bits as you would if your machine had to represent dates and times to the base of the Julian date system. On VMS, eight bytes are used and contain the "clunks", ie 10 ms intervals since the base time. - Ben Burch
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Path: mbox-mo1.pugleaf.net!gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!apple!oliveb!orc!decwrl!shlump.nac.dec.com!slab.enet.dec.com From: bu...@slab.enet.dec.com (Ben Burch) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Class project and question Message-ID: <7061@shlump.nac.dec.com> Date: 21 Dec 89 21:38:12 GMT Sender: newsd...@shlump.nac.dec.com Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation Lines: 21 Posted: Thu Dec 21 22:38:12 1989 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit