I just tried going on these boards but something is well and truely wrong with them. All messages have disappeared and all they give are multitple postings of "untitled, Jan 1 1970".

Not some kind of virus, I hope?

No, not a virus but not something we can control; a technical hitch at Network54, most likely.
Several other people have reported it.

Maybe someone got nostalgic for a pre-metric and pre-decimal period?

What's the connection?

Oh man, this is almost too obvious to explain:

In pre-metric and pre-decimal times the board would have been empty because there would have nothing to post about.

Ralf

My point was actually that 1 January 1970 was before those things in the UK, or at least one of them, but Ralf's point is also true.

we're still pre-metric, ask anyone on the street (ensure he's not a politician tho)

The reason they've all gone to 1 of January 1970 is because, the unix epoch time system, used on Unix and Linux servers is based upon the number of seconds since 1970.
The current epoch is 1046559770.
This system is used extensively in computer systems.
When there is an error in the code that converts an epoch into a time/date that is more understandable, it defaults to 0000000000 which is of course 1/1/1970.

Regards
Dave