Early Sunday morning in Greenwich, England, the clock that keeps Universal Time will strike 01:46:40 — the 40th second of the 46th minute in the second hour of Sept. 9, 2001.
That instant will be an anniversary for the Unix operating system: It marks one billion seconds since midnight on Jan. 1, 1970, which is the moment Unix computers recognize as zero-time.
What exactly will happen at that instant isn’t up for much debate. Airplanes will feel no increased desire to come hurtling to the ground, and nuclear weapons won’t go off unbidden. Social security computers will not become confused about how old your mother is and spry 24-year-olds are unlikely to suddenly receive membership into the AARP.
In other words, this is not Y2K. Computers will purr along as they always do.
But it’s still a milestone, some people in the Unix community say — and some of them intend to celebrate it.
Wired, Sep. 8, 2001