From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Nov 19 13:02:07 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA26639 for chat-outgoing; Wed, 19 Nov 1997 13:02:07 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-chat) Received: from anlsun.ebr.anlw.anl.gov (anlsun.ebr.anlw.anl.gov [141.221.1.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id NAA26627 for ; Wed, 19 Nov 1997 13:02:03 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from cmott@srv.net) Received: from darkstar.home (dialin1.anlw.anl.gov [141.221.254.101]) by anlsun.ebr.anlw.anl.gov (8.6.11/8.6.11) with SMTP id OAA23721 for ; Wed, 19 Nov 1997 14:02:01 -0700 Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 14:01:28 -0700 (MST) From: Charles Mott X-Sender: cmott@darkstar.home To: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Tell the world about Year 2000 Compliance In-Reply-To: <199711191807.LAA05380@mt.sri.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Seriously, almost all unix programs store times/date as milliseconds > since 1970, so they don't have a Y2K problem, but they have the Year > 2038 problem. However, it's hoped that by the time this comes about the > number used to store the time will be bumped to a much bigger #, making > the problem go away. > > However, if that doesn't happen *OR* the programs in question aren't > recompiled, the problem will be the same for them in 2038. However, by > then I won't care since I'll be old and grey. :) :) :) System time is represented in seconds after the birth of Unix, and this value will reach the maximum positive value for a 32 bit signed integer 68 years after 1970, which is the year 2038 as you mention (I append a brief forth calculation to confirm this). Although I am not a personal proponent of DEC Alpha porting, moving FreeBSD to a 64-bit architecture (Merced?), or any other word size for that matter, will tend to improve the code base quite a bit and problems like the 2038 bug can be fixed along the way. Who knows, maybe FreeBSD will become an enduring edifice like Stonehenge. Charles Mott hex 7fffffff decimal 0 d>f .s 2.147484E+09 ok 365 24 * 60 * 60 * 0 d>f .s 3.1536E+07 2.147484E+09 ok f/ .s 68.09626 ok