UNIX systems at the time probably didn’t care about accuracy to the second being maintained over rare leap second adjustments. Random example, the wonderful Re

UNIX systems at the time probably didn’t care about accuracy to the second being maintained over rare leap second adjustments. Random example, the wonderful RealTime1987A project (https://bmonreal.github.io/RealTime1987A/ https://bmonreal.github.io/RealTime1987A/) talks about detecting neutrinos from the supernova, and what information can be inferred from the timing of the detections. A major source of that data is the Super Kamiokande project. The data was recorded to tape by a PDP-11, timestamped by its local clock. That clock was periodically synced with UTC with a sophisticated high-tech procedure that consisted of an operator making a phone call to some time service, then typing the time into the computer. As such, the timestamps recorded by this instrument have error bars of something like +/- one minute. If that’s the sort of world you’re in, trying to account for leap seconds probably seems like a complete waste of effort and precious computer memory.