LabVIEW DSC 8.0 examples that deal with events check for valid timestamp.Why?

[Giovani]

Hi folks !

There are examples that come with LabVIEW DSC 8.0 that deal with alarm events, In these examples - DSC Alarms Event Structure Support.vi contained in DSC Alarms Demo.lvproj, for instance - when an alarm event occurs, the code checks for a valid time stamp - 17:00:00.000 31/12/1975. I´m confused, can anyone help me understanding why it´s done?

Thanks !