Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 6 Jan 2000 17:55:57 +0100 (MET) | From | David Weinehall <> | Subject | RE: time_t size: The year 2038 bug? |
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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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