Live Verification Suite (71 Conformance Tests)
71 / 71 Passed
| ID | Description | Input | Expected [Start, End] | Computed [Start, End] | Status |
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Specification & Syntax Reference Guide
v1.0.0-rc1 · July 4, 2026
Read Normative Specification (v1.0.0-rc1 RFC & ABNF Definition)
The formal normative definition of the 3-Track Coordinate System, bounding invariants, SQL query semantics, and polyglot reference engines.
View Spec
Core Architecture & Scale of Coverage
Traditional software architectures and data implementations are forced into a broken tradeoff: either store expressive text strings ("circa 1976?", "2024-Q3") that relational databases cannot index or query without slow regex scans, or clamp records into rigid point-in-time timestamps that erase temporal uncertainty and precision. TCL-Y2K resolves this tradeoff into a zero-distortion 3-track coordinate engine anchored at the turn of the millennium.
1. Why Anchor to Y2K (Day 0)?
2000-01-01 was chosen as the normative convergence point of modern computing, astronomy, and calendar mathematics. It directly aligns with the IAU J2000.0 Astronomical Epoch (NASA/ESA deep-space ephemerides), the Apple Cocoa & Swift Foundation reference epoch (0.0s), and the rare 400-year Gregorian leap-century modulo boundary:
| Temporal Era | Milestone Event | Calendar Date | Day Coordinate | System Anchor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Epoch Zero | Worldwide Millennium Turn | 2000-01-01 |
Day 0 | Civil Calendar Epoch |
| Negative Days | First Web Page Online at CERN | 1991-08-06 |
Day -3,070 |
Birth of the Web |
| Negative Days | Apollo 11 Moon Landing | 1969-07-20 |
Day -11,122 |
Global Exploration |
| Positive Days | James Webb Telescope Deep Field | 2022-07-11 |
Day +8,227 |
Early Cosmic History |
| Positive Days | Unix 32-Bit Roll-Over (Y2K38) | 2038-01-19 |
Day +13,898 |
Solved by 64-Bit TCL-Y2K |
2. Astronomical Scale of Coverage
Signed 64-bit integer days (
i64) provide exact modulo arithmetic across all cosmic time without float precision drift:
- Coordinate Range: ±5.8 trillion days (±292 billion years)
- Big Bang to Deep Cosmic Future: Easily spans the entire 13.8B-year universe and ancient civilization archives in a single indexed integer column.
3. Sub-Microsecond SQL Interval Math
Every uncertain date, decade, or quarter resolves to an exact
[start_day, end_day] integer bounding box:
- Allen's Interval Overlap in 1 line:
WHERE start_day <= B.end AND end_day >= B.start - Zero Regex / String Parsing in Queries: Runs at native hardware RAM speeds in SQLite, DuckDB, Postgres, and Rust without query-time date parsing.
Syntax Preferences: TCL-Y2K is designed as a URL-safe, SQL-friendly primary notation for web APIs, distributed databases, and streaming pipelines. EDTF (ISO 8601-2) is fully supported as a secondary notation for legacy and archival library compatibility.
| Temporal Domain | Preferred TCL-Y2K (Primary) | Supported EDTF (Secondary) | Rationale & System Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Closed Intervals | 1976..1985 |
1976/1985 |
.. is safe in REST URL paths & queries; / breaks HTTP routing. |
| Open Start Bounds | ..2026-01-01 or ..1984 |
../1984 |
Pure .. prefix avoids slash (/) collisions in REST URI path segments. |
| Open End Bounds | 2020-01-01.. |
2020-01-01/.. |
Pure .. suffix avoids trailing-slash stripping bugs by reverse proxies and CDNs. |
| Fiscal Quarters | 2024-Q1 through 2024-Q4 (interval: 2024-Q1..2024-Q4) |
2024-21 through 2024-24 (interval: 2024-21/2024-24) |
Human-readable and standard in financial accounting and SQL reporting. |
| Semesters & Halves | 2024-S1, 2024-H2 |
Not in EDTF | First-class support for academic semesters and financial half-year statements. |
| Named Seasons | 1976-Spring, 1984-Fall |
1976-21 |
Self-documenting in historical archives without looking up arbitrary numeric codes. |
| URL-Safe Uncertainty | 1976-u (or 1976-unkn) |
1976? |
1976-u is preferred; prevents query delimiter (?) collisions in HTTP GET requests. |
| URL-Safe Approx | c1976 or 1976-a (or 1976-approx) |
1976~ |
c1976 & 1976-a avoid URL escaping and match historian convention (circa). |
| URL-Safe Inferred | 1976-i (or 1976-infer) |
1976% |
Avoids % which causes URI percentage-encoding decoding crashes on web servers. |
| Case-Insensitive Masks | 198X or 198x |
198X |
Robust against user case input across search bars and CLI tools. |
| Micro Streaming Media | tcly2k-media:1984-01-24#125430 |
Not in EDTF | Binds wall-clock calendar dates directly to millisecond video/audio streaming offsets. |
Interactive 3-Track Coordinate Parser
EXACT
Canonical:
URL & Certainty:
Qtr & Season:
Deep Time & Masks:
Track 1: Semantic Presentation
possibly 1976
Precision: year
Certainty: uncertain
Track 2: Macro Epoch (Day Bounds)
[-8766, -8401]
Start Day: -8766
End Day: -8401
Track 3: Micro Media / Time Bounds
[0, 86399] s
Start Sec: 0
End Sec: 86399
-15,000 Days (~1959)
Year 2000 (Day 0)
+15,000 Days (~2041)
Allen's Interval Algebra
Polyglot Query & Multi-Runtime Code
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