[tz] Old timestamps on files

[Garrett Wollman]

On December 29, 2018 7:27:48 PM EST, Antonio Diaz Diaz <antonio at gnu.org> wrote:
>Clive D.W. Feather wrote:
>> I also have a number of files dated 1980-01-01 with a range of times,
>but I'm
>> a bit more suspicious about them. Though since they are Infocom games
>they
>> might be genuine.
>
>I have a number of files dated 1980-01-01 (copied from 5 1/4 floppies),
>
>but those that I have been able to verify are really newer.

1980-01-01 is the (PC|MS)-DOS epoch. Early PCs did not have a battery backed clock, and so every boot would require manually setting the clock -- and many people did not bother to do so, hence timestamps of that date are not to be trusted.

-GAWollman