[Tfug] IBM 5100 v. Holographic Computers

[Christopher Robbins]

<snip>

> This is relevant to me, in particular, because I am standing at the
> beginning of
> a large potential project that proposes to migrate many public planning
> functions into the *nix world. How can I seriously propose this if the
> IT world
> doesn't take the time stamp problem seriously?
>
> It will take time and effort to fix this time stamp problem. It doesn't simply
> dissappear.
>
>
</snip>

It seems that the *nix guys have already taken this into some
consideration back in 2000, seen here -

http://www.unix.org/version2/whatsnew/year2000.html


"1.2 How can we prepare and adapt to this problem?

Examine your source code and look for date usage within the code.
Update your source code so it can handle data in the range 1900-2099.
If the system you are using has a 32-bit signed time_t be aware that
problems may occur as soon as the year 2038. If this matters you
should consider upgrading to a platform supporting 64-bit signed
time_t or 32-bit unsigned time_t values.

 Look for any log files that store dates in two digit format, examine
how the data is processed. Consider converting such log files to use
four digit format. Alternately adopt an approach for interpreting two
digit date formats (see the Advice to Implementors section in
getdate() below). -- "

There's quite a bit of info there for *nix programmers...There's also
this site here -

http://www.deepsky.com/~merovech/2038.html

Which includes a perl test script to see if your systems can handle
the switch....Another thing - it's only 2006.  We still have 32 years
to solve this problem.  People weren't up in arms about the Y2K bug in
the 80s...(Well possibly - I wasn't around until '85, and I don't
remember much from then :) )  What are the odds that most of your
mission-critical hardware is replaced by then?  High?

-Chris


Chris Robbins
Dept. of English Technical Support
http://www.homerengineeringcorp.net