A day is a day because it has a beginning. For example, the Gregorian calendar starts at year zero and takes us to this year, 2020, but this "account" is so because it has a starting place. On a computer, if the starting point was also not established, it would be impossible to translate a specific date, would it? To solve this problem, an Epoch session is created.
What is Epoch Time?
Epoch Time is the sum that gives the computer day the number of digits expressed in seconds, as well as the starting point for counting. This way, PCs can translate dates as readable and calculated values.
In the English dictionary, «Epoch» is defined as a time interval that is regarded as the beginning of a particular time or event. In a computer, Epoch time refers to the starting point used for calculations the number of seconds has passed in that first location and so far, to calculate the exact date and time.
Epoch Weather on the Operating System
As we mentioned, this is the start time used to calculate the day, but each app has a different start. While in the real world Epoch time is set to 00:00 UTC (where UTC is the total meeting time), in applications it is set as follows:
- MacOS (Apple): Starts January 1, 1904.
- Microsoft Windows: Starts January 1, 1601.
- UNIX and Linux Deployment: Starts January 1, 1970. This date is also known as "UNIX time".
As you can see, the Epoch era is a bit of a controversial and inventive endeavor as they have always wanted in each case, not a generic or universal one but simply a way to make the computer translate day by day. In the case of UNIX time, it was developed by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson (creators of UNIX) in the 1960s.
How to use them and what problems they involve
UNIX time is stored as a 32-bit signed integer. As each second increases, the value increases accordingly and is eventually calculated will reach its limit on January 19, 2038 at 03:14: 7
By 2038, all computers are expected to be 64-bit already (remember that Epoch time is saved at 32-bit value and that problem is not there.
There is, however, a fair bit of truth, because recently YouTube experienced a similar situation thanks to the success of the popular Gangnam Style video made by Psy. YouTube has retained (until then) the total amount of video visits in the amount of 32, but there are so many visits that they exceed the limit and the visit is resumed from scratch again. Since then, Youtube has updated the value to 64 bits.