It comes up each year: Received: (from MAILER@BITNIC for MAIL-L@DBNGMD21 via NJE) (RSCS9617-9617; 235 LINES); Mon, 05 May 86 20:38:41 CET Received: by BITNIC (Mailer X1.23) id 9481; Mon, 05 May 86 14:30:01 EDT Received: from USC-ISIB.ARPA by wiscvm.wisc.edu on 05/05/86 at 12:39:54 CDT Date: 4 May 1986 16:11:55 PDT Sender: List Processor<LISTSERV@BITNIC> Reply-to: Distribution List <MAIL-L@BITNIC> X-From: [log in to unmask] From: [log in to unmask] Subject: Time Zones To: local distribution <MAIL-L> (Distribution: MAIL-L) Comment: cc: [log in to unmask] Hi. Is "BST" Bering Standard Time or British Summer Time ? And how many hours from my time in California is "MEZ" ? As far as i can find there are no international standards for time zone names or three letter codes. The ISO has a standard for the representation of local time differentials (ISO 4031). In this standard the time "zone" is indicated by a numeric offset from Co-ordinated Universal Time (UTC). Below is a message from some folks at MIT reporting on their investigation in to time zones. --jon. Date: Fri, 22 Feb 85 14:55 EST From: Gary Dixon <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: zone sources To: [log in to unmask] cc: "Gary M. Palter" <[log in to unmask]>, James A Falksen <[log in to unmask]> Resent-Date: 22 Feb 85 22:43 EST Resent-From: [log in to unmask] Resent-To: [log in to unmask] Resent-Comment: Jon, -- Remember the discussion a couple of months ago about time zone designators and the Multics protocol police rejection of things not in your specification? Well, the Multics central guru bureau has reversed field, and is about to start accepting any time zone designator in a much larger legal list, which I attach for your amusement. If you should ever find yourself faced with a need to reissue the relevant RFC and a demand for further time zone definitions, these people, in classic Multics fashion, seem to have gotten off to a somewhat scholarly start (notwithstanding the astrology reference.) -- Now if we could just get the ISO people to debate things like this instead of proposing presentation management protocols before anyone has built one, they might actually provide us a useful service. -- Regards, Jerry -- ------- Hi, Jerry: Gary Palter relayed your inquiry on Multics time zones to me, as project leader of the software team which developers the new Multics date/time software. Jim Falksen was the other team member, and he supplied our starting set of time zone names, which were then augmented based upon customer input. Our investigations haven't turned up any standards for zone names, other than the ANSI standard for US names. It took some digging to find any references which listed zone names and offsets. Jim Falksen used the following sources to form his initial list of time zone names: from THE ASTROLOGY ANNUAL REFERENCE BOOK, 1981 by Marcian B. MacGregor and Zipporah Pottenger Dobyns, Ph.D. "STANDARD TIME(ZONE TIME): At an International Conference held in Washington D.C. on October 1, 1884, the Greenwich Meridian was adopted as the prime meridian (0 degrees), with equal division of the world in 24 fifteen-degree time zones (as originally proposed by Sanford Fleming, a Canadian civil and railway engineer). Subsequently the following International Time Zones were adopted: -0000 WET Western European Time -0100 WAT West Africa Time -0200 AT Azores Time -0300 BST Brazil Std Time -0330 NFT Newfoundland Time -0400 AST Atlantic Std Time -0500 EST Eastern Std Time -0600 CST Central Std Time -0700 MST Mountain Std Time -0800 PST Pacific Std Time -0900 YST Yukon Std Time -1000 CAT Central Alaska Time -1030 HST Hawaiian Std Time *Hawaii adopted -1000 in 1947 -1100 NT Nome Time -1100 BT Bering Time -1200 IDLW INternational Date Line, West +0100 CET Central European Time +0200 EET Eastern European Time, USSR Zone 1 +0300 BT Baghdad Time, USSR Zone 2 +0330 IT Iran Time +0400 USSR Zone 3 +0500 USSR Zone 4 +0530 IST Indian Standard Time +0600 USSR Zone 5 +0630 NST North Sumatra Time +0700 SST South Sumatra Time, USSR Zone 6 +0730 JT Java Time +0800 CCT China Coast Time, USSR Zone 7 +0830 MT Moluccas Time +0900 JST Japan Std Time, USSR Zone 8 +0930 SAST South Australia Std Time +1000 GST Guam Std Time, USSR Zone 9 +1130 USSR Zone 10 +1130 NZT New Zealand Time *adopted +1200 in 1945 +1200 IDLE International Date Line, East" A second source was THE AMERICAN EPHEMERIS, 1971 to 1980, By Neil F Michelsen. "Time ZOnes of the World +0000 GMT Greenwich -0100 WAT West Africa -0200 AT Azores -0300 Brazil Zone 2 -0330 NST Newfoundland -0400 AST Atlantic -0500 EST Eastern -0600 CST Central -0700 MST Mountain -0800 PST Pacific -0900 YST Yukon -1000 AHST Alaska-Hawaii -1030 HST Hawaiian -1100 NT Nome -1100 BST Bering -1200 Int'l Date Line +0100 CET Central European +0100 MET MIddle European +0200 EET Eastern European +0300 BT Baghdad +0400 USSR Zone 3 +0500 USSR Zone 4 +0530 IST Indian +0600 USSR Zone 5 +0630 NST North Sumatra +0700 SST South Sumatras +0730 JT Java +0800 CCT China Coast +0900 JST Japan +0930 SAST South Australia +1000 GST Guam +1200 NZT New Zealand" From these two lists we derived the following times. Items below which are starred were added to the basic list at customer request. known time zones: |-11:00 nt Nome Time | |-10:00 ahst Alaska-Hawaii Standard Time | | | -9:00 yst Yukon Standard Time | | | | -8:00 pst Pacific Standard Time | | | | | -7:00 mst Mountain Standard Time | | | | | -7:00 pdt Pacific Daylight Time | | | | | | -6:00 cst Central Standard Time | | | | | | -6:00 mdt Mountain Daylight Time | | | | | | | | | | | |-11:00|-10:00| -9:00| -8:00| -7:00| -6:00| -5:00| -4:00| -3:00| -2:00| | | | | | | | | | | | Eastern Standard Time est -5:00| | | | Central Daylight Time cdt -5:00| | | | Atlantic Standard Time ast -4:00| | | Eastern Daylight Time edt -4:00| | | Newfoundland Standard Time nst -3:30 | | Greenland Standard Time gst -3:00| | Atlantic Daylight Time adt -3:00| | Azores Time at -2:00| | -1:00 wat West Africa Time | | +0:00 ut Universal Time | | +0:00 z Universal Time | | +0:00 gmt Greenwich Mean Time | | | +1:00 bst British Summer Time (*) | | | +1:00 cet Central European Time | | | +1:00 met Middle Europe Time | | | +1:00 mewt Middle Europe Winter Time | | | +1:00 swt Swedish Winter Time (*) | | | +1:00 fwt French Winter Time (*) | | | +1:00 hfh Heure Francais d'Hiver (*) | | | | +2:00 mest Middle Europe Summer Time | | | | +2:00 eet Eastern European Time | | | | +2:00 sst Swedish Summer Time (*) | | | | +2:00 fst French Summer Time (*) | | | | +2:00 hfe Heure Francais d'Ete (*) | | | | | +3:00 bt Baghdad Time | | | | | | +4:00 zp4 GMT +4 hours. | | | | | | | +5:00 zp5 GMT +5 hours. | | | | | | | | | | | | -1:00| +0:00| +1:00| +2:00| +3:00| +4:00| +5:00| +6:00| +7:00| +8:00| | | | | | | | | | | | Indian Standard Time ist +5:30 | | | GMT +6 hours. zp6 +6:00| | | (*) West Australian Standard Time wast +7:00| | Java Time jt +7:30 | (*) West Australian Daylight Time wadt +8:00| China Coast Time cct +8:00| | +9:00 jst Japan Standard Time | +9:30 cast Central Australian Standard Time (*) | +9:30 sast South Australian Standard Time | |+10:00 east East Australian Standard Time (*) | | +10:30 cadt Central Australian Daylight Time (*) | | +10:30 sadt South Australian Daylight Time (*) | | |+11:00 eadt East Australian Daylight Time (*) | | | |+12:00 nzt New Zealand Time | | | | | | +9:00|+10:00|+11:00|+12:00| Also, we have recently received a request to add +12:00 nzst New Zealand Standard Time (*) +13:00 nzdt New Zealand Daylight Time (*) but haven't added them to our table yet. Hope this helps. Gary ***** end ***** -------