Theme Week, Part C!

Jeremy’s Sametime Status Proudly Presents: The End Of The World Week! The world may end on January 19, 2038 due to the Unix 2038 Bug. You have 29 Years, 11 Months and 13 Days to get a new computer.


The 2038 bug? Isn't that basically the Unix version of Y2K


Indeed it is, and it clearly means the end of the world.


Clearly. So how does it work?


Well, very simply, Unix uses a dating system that is merely a number of seconds that have elapsed since January 1, 1970. This is good in the sense that the Y2K thing didn't affect anything Unix-based, but it is equally bad in that the 32-bit systems will run out of binary digits to use in representing the date. That will occur at 3:14 UTC on January 19, 2038.

Here's a great graphical representation of the problem that I found laying around on Internet:
(Apparently, you have to click this to watch it happen)



Yep...it goes right back to 1970. The world didn't end in 1970, though.


The world didn't end on January 1, 2000 either, did it?


I guess not.


So we'll just have to wait and see.