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SubjectRE: time_t size: The year 2038 bug?
On Wed, 5 Jan 2000, Terry Katz wrote:

> > My main point was that 38 years is a LONG TIME in the computer industry.
> > Are you still using Wordperfect 5.1 on a 386 DOS machine at 40 MHz? It
> > requires much less energy than the Windows boxen running at 200+MHz and
> > it has the added feature that secretaries really liked it and the Windows
> > version of the same product sucked (from what I understand). That was 10
> > years ago...
>
> This is a very poor point .. where I personally can say 'No, I am not still
> using my 386 DOS machine...' There are still many people out there using
> these machines.
>
> Our company runs an international internet contest, and some of our past
> (and present) entries come from users which are still using 386+486
> machines... There are some places in the world inwhich the price of
> upgrading is too expensive, or it is just not easy to upgrade to the latest
> machines.

All my development machines for the MCA-sepcific parts of the kernel are
386's or 486's (quite naturally; the Pentium models are very hard to get
a hold of. I really wish I could, however.)

> We had a brief discussion about this on the Debian list, and there too,
> there are still those that have such machines in active use.
>
> Albeit, the 386 is not that old (old by computer standards, but not old by
> 'human' years .. ), and a lot can change in 38 years, but that all depends
> on when the 'last' 32bit machine is produced and when the bigger and better
> ones come out .. (ie, if cheap-home-use 32bit machines are around for
> another 10 years or so .. then your point above will be just as poor in 38
> years as it is now .. )

For that matter, I still use my Commodore 64 too (and my 128, for that
matter.) Not to run Linux, admittedly. I would if possible, however, just
for the fun of it.

> Intel, AMD, Cyrix, etc... can all phase out the 32bit chips in a few years
> and start pushing 64bit+ machines for home use, you will still have the
> users out there that will either not be able to afford to upgrade (32bit
> machines will be around for quite some time, and intel 64bit platform will
> not be cheap .. especially when they are/were selling xeon's for up to $7000
> a piece processor alone)...
>
> There are still locations .. schools, libraries, etc... that still have PC
> Jr's, Commodore 64's, Mac Classic's, Apple IIgs's, etc... and look at how
> old some of those machines are!

I do my word-processing using my Mac IIsi (with a grayscale portray
display), because my favourite word-processor, barring LaTeX, of course,
is MacWrite II.


/David
_ _
// David Weinehall <tao@acc.umu.se> /> Northern lights wander \\
// Project MCA Linux hacker // Dance across the winter sky //
\> http://www.acc.umu.se/~tao/ </ Full colour fire </


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