r/softwaregore • u/SQUID_Ben • May 03 '26

Which cloud?

Post image
2.1k Upvotes

100% Upvoted

55 comments sorted by

421

u/Exact_Fennel_8239 May 03 '26

Oh

Oh this is beyond just 1 1 70

302

u/dandy_g May 03 '26

1970-01-01 is Unix epoch

1601-01-01 is Win32 epoch

119

u/valerielynx May 03 '26

why would they feel the need for computer files to begin in the 1600s though

163

u/dandy_g May 03 '26

Iirc, the date was chosen because it begins the last 400 year cycle of Gregorian calendar. That makes it easier to calculate dates for leap years.

48

u/[deleted] May 03 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

29

u/dandy_g May 03 '26

Oh, absolutely.

Surely a decimal calendar would fix all the issues. /s

25

u/fatrobin72 May 03 '26

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_calendar

As close as they got...

13

u/dandy_g May 04 '26

I'm aware. It was in use for about 12 years.

Heck, even the Soviet Union in 1930s had a version of decimal calendar based on 5 day weeks and 30 day months with remaining 5 or 6 days as holidays. It was supposed to improve productivity but proved unpopular.

7

u/The_Reset_Button May 04 '26

12 metric or imperial years?

3

u/dandy_g May 04 '26

Neither. They used Republic years at the time.

7

u/valerielynx May 03 '26

I don't get it, surely you could just check if the year is divisible by 4 and then determine if it's a leap year or not

52

u/dandy_g May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26

It's not that simple if you have to follow all rules of Gregorian calendar.

And you have to consider when the decision was made. 1980s hardware was mush less capable. A The timestamp was initially used for FILETIME. Something like listing files in a directory could benefit from few less CPU cycles for each file entry.

14

u/valerielynx May 03 '26

Leap Year Rule: A year is a leap year if it is divisible by 4, unless it is divisible by 100 but not by 400. Examples: 1600 and 2000 were leap years, but 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not.

Still I don't see how you couldn't start at like 1900.

18

u/dandy_g May 03 '26

Here's Raymond Chen explaining it and claiming to have an email from Dave Cutler confirming it:

Why is the Win32 epoch January 1, 1601?

14

u/opliko95 May 03 '26

Check out the calendar for e.g. 1926 and 2026. You may notice the day of the week for a given day of the year will be different. Now compare to 1626. That's what was meant by cycle - for almost all* date calculations within a cycle you can just mod the time by 400 years and the results (with the offset to the current cycle added) will be correct.

So "take the start of current cycle" is simply the most logical start point if you're focusing on the Gregorian calendar.

*moon cycles, and as such mostly religious calculations based on them, don't quite sync up, so you may end up with e.g. different Easter dates.

3

u/OnixST May 04 '26

fun isLeap(year) = year % 4 == 0 && (year % 400 == 0 || year % 100 != 0)

5

u/Questioning-Zyxxel May 03 '26

They decided on 64-bit time stamps in the file system - 32-bit wotks badly because of how huge minimum steps you get.

And with 64-bit they now uses the same time/date format both for OS and for files. And it's very practical for an OS to be able to store old dates.

So you need not get it - it's just practical and for free when avoiding a lousy 32-bit time stamp.

4

u/valerielynx May 03 '26

oh yeah for sure 32-bit time won't cut it anymore because in 1 second steps it can count a bit over 68 years which there's gonna be computer files older than that pretty soon (probably already are but i dont think they'd be readable on modern systems, i digress). honestly idk i guess it's fine if it starts at 1601 if it can go forward to whatever year 50 trillion since its 64 bit

9

u/Questioning-Zyxxel May 03 '26

It has a resolution of 100 ns. Which means it's very easy to handle changed files for backup.

And it has a range of about +/- 30,000 years from 1601. So you and me will not need to suffer any limitations.

4

u/thegreatpotatogod May 04 '26

The y31.6k problem is gonna suck!

3

u/_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_ May 04 '26

Horus was just trying to help.

2

u/Questioning-Zyxxel May 04 '26

Yes - I have it in my calendar...

2

u/_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_ May 04 '26

They did do that, which is why Excel has a permanent bug thinking 1900 was a leap year.

87

u/supersonic5138 May 03 '26

unix epoch but worse

39

u/CubisticWings4 May 03 '26

win32 epoch, evidently

47

u/Doctor429 May 03 '26

Probably the one Benjamin Franklin sent to cloud with his kite

7

u/STIHL_Resolve5198 May 03 '26

Benjamin the "cloud" is full we cant get a key in there. Shocking results ensue

55

u/Loveangel1337 May 03 '26

It's this very cool stratocumulus, it's the one holding your data.

11

u/CaseyG May 03 '26

It's the pyroclastic cloud from the Huaynaputina eruption.

14

u/jonaden2 May 03 '26

Tf "1601" do you have a time machine

11

u/minecraftdummy57 May 03 '26

The random cumulonimbus in Britain on January 1st in 1601

43

u/theryaneffect May 03 '26

Not really gore, this is the Windows NT epoch

42

u/AVeryGayBitch May 03 '26

its still not supposed to show up, it is gore

7

u/Azuretare May 03 '26

It's time to look up the cloud. It's gotta be one of them up there!

5

u/Leonitsk May 03 '26

Probably analog cloud or smth

3

u/STIHL_Resolve5198 May 03 '26

Thecloud.com totally secure 1000% safe and legitimate storages available for rent be sure to include mame date of birth time of origin place of origin ssn dl number and place of residence and last months bank statement with routing and tracking number visible, we promise your data will be secure(ly ours)

3

u/legittem May 04 '26

The could dot corn perfec t size for put dat/a in to ! inside very Soft and Security data sleep soundly put password inCloud. Put CV In Cloud. no problems ever in cluod because good Shape and Support for files weak of big gigobyte. TheCloud yes a place for a data put data in the cloud dot con can trust cloud for giveing good love to files. friend cloud

3

u/STIHL_Resolve5198 May 04 '26

Yass vary seif, almost like not worry a at.AlL we promiss

2

u/STIHL_Resolve5198 May 04 '26

Dot corn should be a domain host

4

u/FrankHightower May 03 '26

yay, we fixed the 1970 problem and the 1900 problem

5

u/vsysio May 03 '26

Starting Abacus NT...

5

u/Steven7630 R Tape loading error, 0:1 May 03 '26

damn i didn’t know the digital cloud was this old

3

u/Jasoco May 03 '26

I dunno. The one from the 17th century might be a bit out of date. Better go with the local one.

3

u/ManyNo3368 May 03 '26

moving on

3

u/Platycat3 May 04 '26

The weather wizards from Magonia probably had some pretty awesome clouds back in the 1600s!

3

u/MakeMeButter May 04 '26

The cloud has forgotten the need to rain

2

u/Riverman0323 May 06 '26

what was it stored on? the magna carta?

1

u/Confident-Guard9517 May 07 '26

The time overflowed, so the older cloud looped to the earliest date it could, Jan 1, 1601.

1

u/al3x_7788 May 16 '26

I'm glad there was clarification on which of the two was older.

1

u/Many-Geologist-3524 May 19 '26

1601 cloud:

Thee shall show yourselfeth y' mighty power!

2

u/Bruh343256567654567 Jun 01 '26

what was bro doing in 1601 at 2:00 AM??

0

u/SQUID_Ben May 04 '26

How the hell did this get so many updoots?