Re: tlug: Y2K + 38

[Chris Sekiya <chris@example.com>]

On Thu, 14 Jan 1999, Howard Abbey wrote:

> Since Minux ran on 16 bit systems (right?), wouldn't it's time be up by
> now?  Does anybody know if it is(n't) and why so?

The problem is not how many bits (word size?  My mind is drawing a blank
this late in the afternoon) the underlying architecture has -- the problem
is the number of bits used to represent the time elapsed since Zero Day.

Every UNIX I've seen uses a signed long (i.e., a 32 bit number) to hold
the date information.  Moving to a long long (i.e., a 64 bit number) would
break binary compatibility.  There's probably a good reason why an
unsigned long isn't being used, but I can't think of it right now.

-- Chris

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