Category: Geeks r Us
The year 2038 problem may cause some computer software to fail before or in the year 2038. The problem affects programs that use the POSIX time representation, which represents system time as the number of seconds (ignoring leap seconds) since January 1, 1970. This representation is standard in Unix-like operating systems and also affects software written for most other operating systems because of the broad deployment of C. On most 32-bit systems, the time_t data type used to store this second count is a signed 32-bit integer. The latest time that can be represented in this format, following the POSIX standard, is 03:14:07 UTC on Tuesday, January 19, 2038. Times beyond this moment will "wrap around" and be represented internally as a negative number, and cause programs to fail, since they will see these times not as being in 2038 but rather in 1901. Erroneous calculations and decisions may therefore result.
"Year 2038" is frequently abbreviated to "Y2038", "Y2K38", or "Y2.038K" in software professionals' jargon. In 2038 after the date rolls over, the first erroneous date will be Friday, December 13, 1901, so some have speculated that it may become known as the Friday the 13th bug.
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I guess its time I purchased my win xp pro 64 bit addition :P
Just in case.
thought that was already fixed on an update released about 3 weeks ago or something.
I dobn't think that people will be using XP and 32-bit systems in '38.
How interesting. I didn't know that.
Thanks.
Here we go again. Should I start buying the bottle watter?
Bob
I dunno, its only 31 years away. I have 2 working spectrums setup in my room and are school still uses the bbc basic computers on a dayly basis.
I'm not joking, no.
The BBC is an incredible machine and has superior I/O to any modern PC in many ways. (And Superior Software's speech synthesizer would give any modern system a run for its money - not bad for a program most BBC micro mags referred to as sounding like a dalek.)
The Y2K bug was a product of people using 60's COBOL software in critical systems because "replacing it was too expensive". Most OS manufacturers seem to have learned this time. Even Microsoft has updated software before it broke, which is unusual for them. Applications are another matter and older BIOSes are definitely at risk.
Those who feel confident enough - and know how to factory-reset their BIOS - might want to play with clock settings to see if anything fries. Remember that commercial licenses don't sanity-check dates and won't question why the clock is three decades off from anything actually on the computer, and who can guess what anti-piracy DRM software is going to make of such timeshifts.
However, if someone can produce a list of known broken packages, it might be a good thing to post up.