Conference noted::hackers_v1

    why, it's my birthday, that's why !! (it really is)
    
    actually, 17-nov-1858 is the astrological (or astrophysical, i can't
    remember) base date used by the smithsonian institute... it is the
    date of the very first smithsonian recognized photographic plate
    
    when the vax stores a date, as a quadqword value, the actual date
    is computed based upon the value of 0000000000000000 as
    17-nov-1858 00:00:00.00
    
    ya know, i just heard this last week......  weird how it came up
    so soon.....

    rocko

>>>     < Note 549.2 by PLDVAX::ZARLENGA "You're on 'er, your Honor" >
            -< how did you manage to live so long? >-

    the old fashion way --- lot's of alcohol, sugar, late night partying,
    and other stuff that's not good for you ... alas, i reminisce, and
    we digress.....  back to work
    
    :-)

16th November 1858			our ref: DRW/nr

TO:	 ALL VAX/VMS USERS
SUBJECT: NEW VAX/VMS FEATURE

This is you to inform you of a new feature available 
with VAX/VMS V9.0.

You are no doubt aware that previously the earliest 
time/date reference when any VMS system could be operated 
from was November 17th 1858. 

With VAX/VMS V9.0 this restriction has been removed.
Version 9 of VMS takes advantage of the new time-dilation 
architecture of the TARDISBUS and we are pleased to 
announce that you can operate Version 9 systems under
any time co-ordinate system either relativistic or 
non-relativistic.

We hope that you will find this new feature useful, 
whichever century your business operates in.

Sincerely,




D. R. WHO

Principal Dimensional Engineer
VMS Development

    It's odd how synchronicities can occur. 
    
    I wrote .4 two or three hours ago because I needed a specimen 
    memo to test out a laser printer.
    
    This was before reading the current topic.
    

    Nigel, Annecy, France

    TOPS-20 also uses this as a base for it's day time and calendar
    calculations. Any other operating systems?
    
    Mike

    Hasn't the implementation VMS uses ( based on 17-nov-18.., incrememted
    in 10^-7 second intervals ) been a computing standard?

> Why does time on the VAX begin at 0:00 17-NOV-1858?

	Well that date happens to have a "Julian Day Number" of
	2,400,000.500 

	Julian Day Numbers are based on 12:00:00 1-Jan-413BC and are
	use primarily in astronomy.  Today (10-Sep-1987) is 2447048+.

	Since the Julian Day Numbers have been 24nnnnn for a while, 
	it was common practice to subtract 2400000 when reporting 
	observations.  Others would subtract 2400000.5 to make the 
	pseudo-Julian day begin and end at midnight (instead of noon).  
	This caused much confusion.

    I always thought that was the date we changed from/to the greogorian
    calendar.
    
    If you have got a calendar program look at November 1858 and I think
    you will find a few days missing.

    Michael Fine worked on a proposed and accepted new DEC standard:

         "Representation of Time for Information Exchange"
    
    The standard can be found in (world read but no wildcards allowed)
    nac::net$arch:[fieldtest]timerep_t1_0_0.ln3   	(ln03 printer)
                                               .ps    	(postscript printer)

	My personal summary:
                                                        
    	- All numeric, easily sortable ASCII format YYYYMMDDhhmmss.fff
	- New 128 bit BINARY format
    	- Base date = start gregorian reform: 1582-10-15-00:00:00
	- Notion of Accuracy, Timezones and the Representation version,
		(all encoded in second quadword)
    	- In order to support leap-seconds, some minutes may have 61 seconds!
    	- You can tell a vms-date (start: 1858-11-17) as we know and love
    	  them from the new standard by looking at the upper byte.
    	  For old style dates that byte will be 0 (up to the year 2086)
Hein.    
    

    re .4:
    
    I like it! I forwarded it to the other members of the VMS Exec Group so
    we can put it on our wish list. Thanks for giving us until V9. 
    
    	Jon

For reference, November 1858 was a perfectly ordinary month.  See calendar
at end of note.

The date of the change to the Gregorian calendar varies throughout the
world.  Choosing one specific date is guaranteed to be wrong in many
countries (and in some countries, different towns -- and different
religions -- chose different dates).

I would suggest keeping the base date as present.  Earlier times could
use negative numbers.  While not particularly beautiful, programs to
convert Julian day numbers to civil dates are easy to write (and you
can copy mine from BOLT::DECUSC$LIBRARY:CALEND.C -- it understands
the Julian-Gregorian conversion for about 100 sites.  Try, for example,
"$ calend sweden 1712" or "$ calend sweden 1753")

Martin.

      Oct 1858               Nov 1858               Dec 1858
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa   Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa   Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
                1  2       1  2  3  4  5  6             1  2  3  4
 3  4  5  6  7  8  9    7  8  9 10 11 12 13    5  6  7  8  9 10 11
10 11 12 13 14 15 16   14 15 16 17 18 19 20   12 13 14 15 16 17 18
17 18 19 20 21 22 23   21 22 23 24 25 26 27   19 20 21 22 23 24 25
24 25 26 27 28 29 30   28 29 30               26 27 28 29 30 31
31

>>>     < Note 549.2 by PLDVAX::ZARLENGA "You're on 'er, your Honor" >
>            -< how did you manage to live so long? >-
>
>    the old fashion way --- lot's of alcohol, sugar, late night partying,


Then the well-balanced drink is for you, it includes something from the
basic food groups.  The drink is the

	IRISH COFFEE

It includes all of the following important food groups:

o	sugar
o	alcohol
o	cholesterol
o	caffeine

/Eric

      This is discussed in several other places.
      
      See also 
      
        Conferences                           Note
      
      HUMAN::NOTES$ARCHIVE::ASKENET_V2         652
      ILAVU::TRIVIA                            942
      VAXWRK::NOTES$ARCHIVE:VMSNOTES_V2       2026

      Dave C.

re: .15

Dave is, of course, referring to calendars, not Irish Coffee.

By the way, my calendar program is stored in

	BOLT::DECUSC$LIBRARY:[TOOLS]CALEND.C

Martin.

    Say the truth! I'ts my birday as well! It's the very first time
    I found another 'human' born in that date... of course NOT 1858,
    exactly 90 years later.
    Even this note is old, has always been my curiosity to know what
    that date meant, thank you.