Back when there was still about a year to go until the start of the millennium, I was wondering what kinds of problems await the computers I have to live with. Here’s some stuff I found/worked out.
Systems running Unix or Unix-like operating systems are likely to be OK with the changeover to 2000, but they may have problems in 2038. The system time in Unix is represented internally by the number of seconds since the so-called epoch time, which occurred at the very beginning of 1970. The number of seconds from the epoch is typically (invariably?) represented by a signed 32-bit integer, which means that the system time will overflow 2 147 483 648 seconds after the epoch.
By my reckoning (and experimentation), this overflow will occur on 2038-01-19 (a Tuesday) at 03:14:08 UTC, so the system time will warp from 2038-01-19 03:14:07 UTC to 1901-12-13 20:45:52 UTC.
Furthermore, on Unix systems that store dates in UTC internally (are there any that don’t?), this incorrect rollover will occur at the same time around the world. This differs from many types of year-2000 problem, which are dependent on the local time, giving a little extra time to solve problems after they been discovered elsewhere in the world.
While we’re on the topic, why don’t I encourage you to start using the ANSI/ISO date format?
I did look into this a bit before the transition, but I can’t remember exactly what I found out. The transition to 2000 was not a problem as far as the hardware and OS are concerned, but I think there were various dates during the 21st century that would cause problems. I’ll check it out some time and write it up.
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This document last modified and © 2001-09-17 14:49:57 NZST