Jan. 20, 2038

[ryokimball]

I'm not one to sit and read a dictionary, but I have been known to flip through one every once in a while out of curiosity. One such occurrence was last night, and I was reading in the "Newton's Telecom Dictionary: 16th Expanded & Updated Edition." The first thing that stuck out was the 2038 bug. If you don't know about this, accordingly Unix machines (by default... I'll get to this in a minute) were built with the "Unix epoch start date" of Jan 1, 1970, and this integer wraps around on January 20, 2038. I'm sure this is an obsolete problem, but... well, for those who are in the know, has this been fixed, or at least upgrated to a later date, such as "Jan. 21, 2038" squared? (a bit of a joke there....)

__________________
Anyways, another thing that popped out was the definition of "yard sell." First that is was in a telecom dictionary, but here it is:

Americas love yard sales also called garage sales. Families sell their old junk to other families who see it as treasure. The process is repeated endlessly. There are variations on this theme, as you can see from this joke Bob Dunagan sent me: "A man was walking one day when he came to a big house in a nice neighborhood. Suddenly he realized there was a couple making love on the lawn. Then he noticed another couple behind a tree. Then another couple behind some bushes. He knocked on the door of the house. A well-dressed woman answered. The man asked her what kind of a place this was? "This is a brothel," replied the woman. "Well, what's all the making love on the lawn? queried the man. Replied the woman, "Oh, we're having a yard sale today."
<sic>

[thesimplecreator]

ive heard about this
and i thot all programs written in c would mess up too(not sure about c++)
but it would be fixed by then and c would no longer be in use

[stinkoman]

was this kind of liek the 2000 bug? when all computers were supposed to crash from thinking its 1900? or what? (you said you would explain it, but you didnt really)

[techieMoe]

was this kind of liek the 2000 bug? when all computers were supposed to crash from thinking its 1900? or what? (you said you would explain it, but you didnt really)

Yes, that's pretty much exactly it. If by some chance there are still 32-bit operating systems being run in 2038, the integer being used to store the time will roll over and instead of January 1, 2038, you'll get January 1, 1970 again. Not *exactly* the same as Y2K, but the same idea.

The thing is, I don't believe this will be a significant issue since 64-bit OSes already exist and are growing in number. By the year 2038 we will most likely have all of our system-critical applications on 64-bit (if not 128-bit) operating systems. A 64-bit integer can hold orders of magnitude more data than a 32-bit one, so the next time we'd have to worry about this is quite a ways off.

[fingal]

Does this mean I'll have to wear flares again?

[techieMoe]

Does this mean I'll have to wear flares again?

Yes, it's a little-known fact that in the event of a date rollover on mainframe UNIX systems, a bend (or OS/2 Warp) will be formed in the space-time continuum, causing all fashion trends to revert to their original state circa 1970. However in this event, the government has a contingency (Plan 9) to slingshot the space shuttle Solaris around the sun, taking them back (before the Millenium, around '98SE) to warn developers of the impending changeover and thus retroactively restore fashion to its rightful state.

[Kieren]

I must write a note to myself that I should invent the rubix cube.

I wonder if a bunch of net names will free up too. I'll have a go at buying google or something :/

[Vergil83]

Yes, that's pretty much exactly it. If by some chance there are still 32-bit operating systems being run in 2038, the integer being used to store the time will roll over and instead of January 1, 2038, you'll get January 1, 1970 again. Not *exactly* the same as Y2K, but the same idea.

The thing is, I don't believe this will be a significant issue since 64-bit OSes already exist and are growing in number. By the year 2038 we will most likely have all of our system-critical applications on 64-bit (if not 128-bit) operating systems. A 64-bit integer can hold orders of magnitude more data than a 32-bit one, so the next time we'd have to worry about this is quite a ways off.

What about embedded systems? Also, who in the 60s would have predicted we would still be using all the old COBOL stuff in 2000?

[techieMoe]

What about embedded systems? Also, who in the 60s would have predicted we would still be using all the old COBOL stuff in 2000?

Firmware updates perhaps? I don't pretend to know the answer. Will we still be using the same embedded devices today in 30 years? As for the COBOL, well, don't really know what to tell you there. My office has quite a mountain of COBOL code on our mainframe just chugging away like it has for 30-something years. I suppose IBM could throw in a patch for their older mainframes to use a different start date? Beats me.

[Roxoff]

Does this mean I'll have to wear flares again?

When did people stop wearing flares?