Computer bugs in the year 2000

[scw at cepu.UUCP]

In article <820 at reed.UUCP> bolles at reed.UUCP (Spencer Bolles) writes:
>
>      I have a friend that raised an interesting question that I immediately
>tried to prove wrong.  He is a programmer and has this notion that when we
>reach the year 2000, computers will not accept the new date.  Will the
>computers assume that it is 1900, [...]s even lost sleep over this.  When
>I say 'friend,' I'm NOT referring to myself, if it seemed that way.

Well, it depends on several things, (1) the 'base' date, (2) how many
bits are uses to encode the offset, and (3) the resolution used.

For example OS/8 (a operating system for the PDP-8  and 12) used 3
bits for they year and a base date of Jan 1 1970. On Jan 1 1978 it
broke.  Unix (v7 anyway) uses 32 bits to record the time in seconds
since 0000Z01JAN70 (Midnight GMT Jan 01,1970) this will break sometime
in 2038 (Jan 18 about 3 AM GMT).  Other operating systems use different
epochs and different resolutions and will break at different times.
-- 
Stephen C. Woods (VA Wadsworth Med Ctr./UCLA Dept. of Neurology)
uucp:	{ {ihnp4, uiucdcs}!bradley, hao, trwrb}!cepu!scw
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