Updated The world's digit-obsessed UNIX lovers are just minutes away from the celebration of a lifetime. At 11:31:30pm UTC time today, the POSIX clock reaches 1234567890 seconds.

Widely used by UNIX and UNIX-based OSes - including Linux and Apple's Mac OS X - the POSIX clock measures the time elapsed since 00:00:00 UTC January 1, 1970 (minus leap seconds (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/09/2008_leap_second/)). That's the beginning of the UNIX Epoch. Just because UNIX people say it is.

You can obsessively watch the countdown to 1234567890 over at the Cool Epoch Countdown (http://coolepochcountdown.com/) - though countdown may be the wrong word. The site also points the way to some epic Epoch humor (http://xkcd.com/376/).

According to 1234567890 Day (http://www.1234567890day.com/), countless 1234567890 parties are set to whoop it up across the planet - though countless may be the wrong word.

As we've said before (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/04/unix_timestamp_milestone/), the world will not end at 1234567890 UNIX time. Unless coincidence strikes. The Unixalypse will come in 2038, when UNIX machines using 32-bit signed integers will suddenly forget they're UNIX machines. ®

Update

We can confirm that the POSIX clock reached 1234567890 - and that the world did not end.

Related story

• Geekerati brace for Unix timestamp milestone (4 February 2009)

  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/04/unix_timestamp_milestone/