What Does ‘Epoch Time’ Mean?

If we want to do word analysis before going on the subject,

epoch: a long period of time in history
time: a period of minutes, hours, years

We see that they have these meanings. According to these meanings, it is not wrong to say epoch times is the meaning of age time but nowadays ‘epoch time’ doesn’t have a general meaning.When we search for epoch time in search engines, we see results such as Unix time, January 1, 1970.It feels like telling a specific history rather than a general meaning. If you want, let’s take a look at what is the epoch time.

What is Epoch Time?

Epoch Time is the reference date used for the system clock in computer systems. This date is January 1, 1970.

So what is the logic and purpose of this reference history ?
A start time is determined for computer systems to calculate the clock. Systems determine our current date based on the time elapsed since the start time. In short, the system clock is the time since epoch time. We can compare this situation to the Gregorian calendar event. We calculate the current year according to this calendar, which assumes the birth of prophet Jesus as zero. If we compare the epoch time to the birth of the Prophet Jesus, our current system time will be our current year.
Well, if you ask what is unix time; Unix is ​​an operating system developed towards the end of the 1960’s. First released in 1971, this operating system has many versions, and the time start is January 1, 1970 at 00:00 on all Unix operating systems. Therefore, this date, which we call epoch time, is also known as Unix time.

Epoch Time, It also means the beginning of history.

Once Upon a Time Epoch Time Problem

I did not want to pass without mentioning a problem faced by iPhone users in 2016. At this time, if users set the phone date as January 1, 1970, the phone was dying. When the phone set for this date was turned off, it wasn’t being turned on again. Confirming the problem on its website, Apple resolved this problem with a software update. However, if you have an iPhone released in 2016 or earlier, I wouldn’t recommend trying this process. Finally, I leave you two 2016 news about this situation. I recommend you to take a look.

Apple’dan ‘iPhone’unuzun tarihini 1970'e ayarlamayın’ uyarısı

Setting the date to 1 January 1970 will brick your iPhone

I hope it was an informative post. Thank you for reading, see you.

If you want to read the Turkish version of this article, you can click here.