Term of the Moment
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Definition: epoch
The starting date from which time is measured as a number of days or minutes or seconds, etc. In computer applications, epochs are used to maintain a time reference as a single number for ease of computation. Otherwise, depending on the granularity of time desired, every point in time would have to be stored with some of or all of the components of the time hierarchy, including year, month, day, hour, minute, second, millisecond, microsecond and nanosecond. Following are the various epochs in use. See also EPOC.
No USB Drives in 1969
System Epoch Measured in Unix/Linux Jan. 1, 1970 Seconds Java Jan. 1, 1970 Milliseconds Windows files Jan. 1, 1601 Ticks (100 ns) Windows dates Jan. 1, 0001 Ticks (100 ns) Mac Jan. 1, 2001 Seconds Earlier Mac Jan. 1, 1904 Seconds Excel Dec. 31, 1899 Days DB2 Dec. 31, 1899 Days Unununium Jan. 1, 2000 Microseconds
When this USB drive was formatted, the date was reset to the epoch. The 7:00pm tells us it was done on the East Coast, five hours behind the UTC time of January 1, 1970 (see above). This info comes from the Mac that the drive was plugged into.