You probably have heard about the year 2038 problem...
The year 2038 problem (also known as "Unix Millennium bug", or
"Y2K38" by analogy to the Y2K problem) may cause some computer
software to fail before or in the year 2038. The problem affects all
software and systems that store system time as a signed 32-bit
integer, and interpret this number as the number of seconds since
00:00:00 January 1, 1970. The latest time that can be represented
this way is 03:14:07 UTC on Tuesday, 19 January 2038. Times beyond
this moment will "wrap around" and be stored internally as a negative
number, which these systems will interpret as a date in 1901 rather
than 2038. This will likely cause problems for users of these systems
due to erroneous calculations.
Solution? 64-bit! But...
Most operating systems for 64-bit architectures already use 64-bit
integers in their time_t, and these operating systems are becoming
more common, particularly in desktop and server environments. Using a
(signed) 64-bit value introduces a new wraparound date in about 290
billion years, approximately[3] on Sunday, December 4, 292,277,026,596.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem>Link
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Posted By johannes to
<http://www.monochrom.at/english/2009/02/in-year-292277026596.htm>monochrom
at 2/02/2009 03:05:00 PM
