Unix anniversary?

Discussion
1

Hi all, :wave:

taking a look at the output of the calendar command, referencing today´s date, I noticed:

Mai 19 UNIX is 10000 days old, 1997

calendar
calendar937×161 20.4 KB

That struck me as odd, as it would be just 27.4 years old. :thinking:

The wikipedia states:

The history of Unix dates back to the mid-1960s, when the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, AT&T Bell Labs, and General Electric were
jointly developing an experimental time-sharing operating system called
Multics for the GE-645 mainframe.

Strange.
I don´t know what to think of it. :neutral_face:

Many greetings from Rosika :slightly_smiling_face:

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2

Hi Rosika,

I found this.
“2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the start of Unix. In the summer of 1969, … computer scientists at the Bell Telephone Laboratories—most centrally Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie—began the construction of a new operating system, using a then-aging DEC PDP-7 computer at the labs.”

Source.

Maybe the calendar was trying to say Unix was 10,000 days old in 1997?
But that would be past the summer of 1969.

Kind Regards,
Howard

PS. 1997/05/19 -10 000 days ( approximately -28 years ) on 1970/01/01.

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3

That was my thought.

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4

Who is going to bake the cake, 8magine the candles needed never mind the size of the cake but put me down for a piece

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5

I agree with you it is plain wrong.
If they meant Linux, that is still wrong, that was about 1993
If they meant PC Unix, that is still wrong, PC-BSD was about 1993 too… slightly before Linux
Strange things happened at Pentecost

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6

Sorry Linux was 1991… that’s when Linus released his first kernel…

Anyway - I just read it :

“May 19 UNIX is 10000 days old, 1997” that UNIX was 10,000 days old in 1997 which makes sense if it started later in the year in 1969 :

╭─x@titan ~/Documents/e-book/epub  
╰─➤  echo $((10000/365))                                                                                                                        
27

Also - 10,000 Days just happens to be the name of a favourite album (by the band Tool).

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7

Yeah, my memory is vague.
I remember getting my first FreeBSD, and Linux was around then but not really a goer.
By about 1996, things changed and I started seeing Linux on workstations replacing Solaris
I am sure things were available before we saw them in use in Australia.

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8

Hi all, :wave:

thanks so much for your replies. :heart:

I knew you all would have a better understanding of the subject than I have.

@easyt50 and @pdecker :

Yes, Howard. I think you´re right. I must have misunderstood then.

I did the calculation this way:

1997 - 27 years = 1970

As 10000/365 equals 27.397, i.e. effectivly more than 27 years this might lead us to 1969 indeed.

Thanks for the link as well, Howard.

@callpaul.eu :

Me too. :wink:

@nevj :

Oh dear. I see. Then the entry in calendar is still wrong, it seems. :thinking:

In the article Howard provided it says:

2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the start of Unix.
In the summer of 1969 […] computer scientists at the Bell Telephone Laboratories—most centrally Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie—began the construction of a new operating system, using a then-aging DEC PDP-7 computer at the labs.

Perhaps they meant that “landmark”…
I don´t know.

Seems that way, Neville.

@daniel.m.tripp :

Hi Dan,

That´s interesting. The result is rounded, right?

I did it this way:

bc -l
bc 1.07.1
Copyright 1991-1994, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2012-2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
For details type `warranty'. 
10000/365
27.39726027397260273972

… which showed me that the result is (slightly) more than 27 years, leading us into 1969.

Thanks for providing your calculation, Dan.

Many greetings to all of you.
BTW: Happy Pentecost, if you´re celebrating. :cake:

All the best from Rosika :slightly_smiling_face:

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9

I think it is interesting that Unix’s Anniversary coincides with Pentecost.
I will never forget the first Unix PC in our lab. Compared to a Microsoft PC
of the time ( ie Win3.1/DOS6) it was a revolution. You actually had all the tools
(compilers, editors , utilities like awk and sed and cat) all there for free and you could actually use it like a workstation.
It is the same today. In Linux we have a tremendous gift ( it was a gift, Linus and GNU gave it away)
We are only the current custodians of this treasure. Pass it on, help others, and enjoy it while we can.
The spirit FOSS is the spirit of Pentecost. It is all about giving.

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10

Hi Neville, :wave:

I totally agree. :+1:

I have but a few acquaintances, but whenever I get the chance to talk to some of them I try to steer the conversation toward this topic.
I almost fear I overdo it at times. :wink:

Yes, funny coinincidence.

Cheers from Rosika :slightly_smiling_face:

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11

I think the answer is simpler:

$ date -ud "1997/05/19 -10000 days"
Thu Jan  1 12:00:00 AM UTC 1970
$ date -ud "@0"
Thu Jan  1 12:00:00 AM UTC 1970

This gives the “epoch”, the “Unix time origin” (internal clock representation), and also the “zero” value as returned by the time(2) system call: 1970-01-01 00:00:00 +0000 (UTC).

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12

Hi @bodiccea, :wave:

thanks for this great explanation of yours.

So what calendar meant was: “UNIX was 10000 days old on May 19 1997”.
The other members in the forum (and you of course) got it right. :+1:

O.K., I´ve learnt something new.

Thanks so much for your help. :heart:

Many greetings from Rosika :slightly_smiling_face:

13

To be pedantic
Unix’s clock was 10000 days old on May 19 1997

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14

Hi Neville, :wave:

Thanks, Neville, for being exact about it. :heart:

P.S.:

I tried out @bodiccea ´s commands

date -ud "1997/05/19 -10000 days"

and

date -ud "@0"

on my system and they worked as expected.
But just for better understandig:

man date says:

-u, --utc, --universal
print or set Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)

But the -u option in itself doesn´t set the system, right?
You´d need to use

-s, --set=STRING
set time described by STRING

to do this.
I hope I understood it correctly.

Cheers from Rosika :slightly_smiling_face:

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15

Right, it only displays UTC instead of local time

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16

Thanks, Neville, for the confirmation. :heart:

Man pages´ somewhat ambiguous wording threw me off the track.

Many greetings from Rosika :slightly_smiling_face:

17

@Rosika ,
I do not understand why Unix needed to set its time system’s origin to its own special day. Our normal time systems all have an origin (0 AD). Why do we need another origin for Unix?

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18

Hi Neville, :wave:

that is a good question.
Perhaps someone else can answer it. I seem to lack the background for doing so. Sorry.

Cheers from Rosika :slightly_smiling_face:

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19

I’d imagine back in the days of 8 bit and 16 bit computing - finding a numbering system to count back to, and forward from “0 AD” would have required more resources than available at the time…

I can still remember computing lecturers banging on about not wasting memory and using pointers efficiently, don’t use arrays if you can find something better - blah blah blah…

Because once upon a time all that stuff cost money, or wasn’t even available…

And not only that - our “time system” (hours, minutes, seconds) pre-date Christianity and Judaiism and go back to Bronze Age Babylon…

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20

Hi Dan, :wave:

that sounds very plausible. :+1:
Thanks for providing us with your views on the matter.

Many greetings from Rosika :slightly_smiling_face: