Computer bugs in the year 2000

Ron Natalie <ron> ron at brl-tgr.ARPA
Mon Jan 28 09:24:11 AEST 1985


> 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.
> -- 
Uh, huh.  Anyone remember the form letter programs from version 6?
It stopped working around 1979, never to move again.  V6 nroff also
used to have a bug that caused certain strange effects to occasionally
appear and disappear every nine hours or so.

-Ron



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