Are GitHub commit timestamps stored as Unix epoch time? If so, could we get similar timestamp accuracy when working with historical source code from systems like UNIVAC?
It's doable, but would have to doctored, there was no git then, obviously.
DATE FORMATS
The GIT_AUTHOR_DATE and GIT_COMMITTER_DATE environment variables support the following date formats:
Git internal format
It is <unix-timestamp> <time-zone-offset>, where <unix-timestamp> is the number of seconds since the UNIX epoch.
$ git commit --amend --date='1970-01-01T00:00:00' --reset-author
[main 6e1d001] test
Date: Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 +0000
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
TZ=UTC git commit --amend --date='1969-12-31T23:59:59Z' --reset-author
[main 47e54f0] test
Date: Mon Dec 31 23:59:59 2012 +0000
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)