Computer bugs in the year 2000

Ron Natalie <ron> ron at brl-tgr.ARPA
Mon Jan 28 09:19:06 AEST 1985


> 
> 	Spencer L. Bolles:
> 	"... 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, or will it even cause a problem? ..."
> 
> Hey!  No big deal!  So what if every piece of code that prints dates with
> ctime[3] starts believing every year in the 21st century is Year 2, thanks to
> a little parenthesization error?
> 
> 		cp[2] = '0' + t->tm_year >= 200;
> 
Of course, UNIX time (seconds past midnight GMT 1 Jan 1970 in 32 bits)
falls apart around 2042.



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