-----Original Message----- From: dsb3 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, September 27, 1998 11:40 PM To: Miquel van Smoorenburg Cc: debian-user@lists.debian.org Subject: Re: Y2K+38 disaster in debian?
On 27 Sep 1998, Miquel van Smoorenburg wrote: >In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, >Wojciech Zabolotny <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>Hi >>There was a lot of noise about the y2k problem in old COBOL and M$ >>applications, but what about the "Y2K+38 disaster" in the POSIX world? >>I was pretty sure that the new libc6 library implements 64 bit time_t, > >It's a kernel issue. On 32 bit platforms time_t will probably always be >restricted to 32 bits, but on 64 bits systems such as the alpha time_t >is 64 bits .. and by 2038 I expect everyone to be running at least >a 64 bit machine. I think it's this attitude that caused y2k to be so large and sudden, at least i part. Though it may be true, and though I would like it very much to be true, I'd hate to bet on "EVERYBODY" moving to a 64 bit system. After all, count the billions of dollars being spent on mainframe systems. I would quite expect many companies to bleed those systems even drier now they've been forced into spending so much money on them ... Mechanically, in less than 15 years, we've gone from $800 72 MB 5 1/4" full height HDs to $600 "fit in your shirt pocket" 8 GB drives. Electronically, the advance has been far more exciting. IMO, I'd find it easy to bet that 32 bit machines and the Y2K++ problem will be a long since thing of the past in 39 years.
