[HECnet] US DST

[William Pechter]

On 3/8/20 9:11 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> On 2020-03-09 01:53, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>> On 2020-03-08 23:43, Robert Armstrong wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> As far as I know, VMS still use local time.
>>>
>>>    VMS has had time zones and automatic daylight savings time 
>>> adjustment since 7.3 or so.
>>>
>>>    Actually, when the name changed from VMS to OpenVMS it was 
>>> because DEC made some attempts to add Posix compatibility. That 
>>> brought in a whole bunch of concepts, including time zones.  I 
>>> believe that's also when we got STREAM-LF and STREAM-CR file 
>>> organization too.
>>
>> Are you sure about that?
>>
>> I must admit I haven't looked beyond 7.3, since I usually play on 
>> VAXen, but I seem to remember clear signs that time is internally 
>> still really localtime.
>
> Actually, looking at the 8.4 manuals, I would say it still keeps the 
> system on local time.
>
> The $BINUTC system call, for example, which is used to get a UTC time, 
> states clearly in the manual that it applies the TDC factor to local 
> time in order to get the UTC time, while $BINTIM just says it gets the 
> time.
>
> Additionally, system calls like $SETIMR and $SCHDWK takes local time, 
> not UTC time, as the time when something is supposed to wake up or 
> cause something to happen. Which even more strongly points to that 
> internally VMS is at localtime.
>
> But I'd be happy to be proven wrong.
>
> By the way, Stream-LF and Stream-CR have been around longer than this, 
> I believe. Not sure when those first showed up. NFT in RSX certainly 
> knows about them, and have since the early 90s I think.
>
>   Johnny
>

IIRC the stream-LF and stuff was in late 3.x and if I'm wrong it was in 
before 4.2 when I left VMS work in Field Service.   I often had files 
going between Unix and VMS and I now it was available...

Interesting how Unix seems to have done the most with Timezone 
handling.  My guess is it's because of the Bell Systems interest in 
record keeping of CDR's (Call-Detail-Records) for phone billing per 
minute charges or message units.  They probably kept the records in GMT 
and just wrote the local time of call and length on the bills when 
processing.

Does anyone know if the assumption is true?

Bill Pechter