May 31, 1988
4:13 p.m.
Networks of systems or multi-os systems or multi-cpu systems could have a different time_t value for the current time.
Just as an aside, UNIX time_t values are not an appropriate representation of time in a distributed system. An ASCII rendition of UT is much better. As such, it doesn't really matter that some systems are accounting for leap seconds or not(*), just like it doesn't matter if some are DEC System-20's with a different base representation. Each system only needs to convert to and from its own representation. brad (*) those that don't understand leap seconds may have some trouble with "87/12/31 23:59:60", although I wouldn't be surprised if they just ended up with "87/12/31 23:59:59"+1.