[Info-vax] Why is starting epoch 17 Nov 1858?

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2021-03-09 20:02:11 +0000, Jim DeCamp said:

> On Monday, November 27, 1995 at 3:00:00 AM UTC-5, 
> zrep... at cuppa.curtin.edu.au wrote:
>> ...
>  It's called Smithsonian time...

Welcome to Usenet, welcome to the comp.os.vms newsgroup, and welcome to 
the archive of newsgroup postings offered via the Google Groups UI.

For those interested, there are various other related discussions of 
OpenVMS and time and timekeeping posted here over the years, including 
this one written by Stan Rabinowitz:
https://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/joke/decly.htm

Also:
http://hoffmanlabs.com/vmsfaq/vmsfaq_004.html#time1

Also:
wiz_2315 has some additional background, including the 36-bit 
timekeeping using two 18-bit hunks.
https://www.digiater.nl/openvms/freeware/v70/ask_the_wizard/

And FWIW, that could-be-culled-from-somebody's-homework-assignment 
question you've replied to is from a quarter-century ago.



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