Re: [PLUG] History is 1/2 over on Saturday

["William H. Magill" <magill@mcgillsociety.org>]

On 06 Jan, 2004, at 21:00, eric@lucii.org wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 06, 2004 at 07:58:30PM -0500, Bob Schwier wrote:
> > Wow.
> > As I don't expect to be alive when Unix dies, my sympathies to you
> > young bloods.
> > bs

> > On Tue, 6 Jan 2004, Mark Dominus wrote:
> >
> > > Unix systems store times as the total number of seconds elapsed since
> > > midnight, 1 January 1970.  Typically, this value is stored as a 
> > > 32-bit
> > > signed integer, which has a range from -2147483648 to 2147483647.
> > >
> > > This range extends to 22:14:07 on Monday, 18 January 2038, at which
> > > time the universe will come to an end.
> > >
> > > Next Saturday, 10 January, at 8:37:04, is exactly halfway between the
> > > zero point in 1970, and the apocalypse in 2038.  At this moment, the
> > > Unix epoch will be exactly half over.
> > >
> > > Happy birthday!
>
> Well, I'm not sure myself (2038 - 1953 = ... oh, nevermind)
> but since we have TONS of warning on this I suspect that the problem
> will be solved LONG before the date arrives.

As I recall, it was fixed long ago in all of the REAL 64 bit Unix 
implementations.

Yet another reason to go to 64 bits. ... not the "double 32" that a lot 
of vendors
have tried to pretend is a 64 bit implementation.

Think about it... The original Unix clock implementation was in 16 bits.
... and this weekend it dies! '

(Anybody still running Unix on a PDP 8 is in serious trouble... for 
many reasons.)

T.T.F.N.
William H. Magill
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magill@mcgillsociety.org
magill@acm.org
magill@mac.com

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