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SubjectRe: Y2K-like bug to hit Linux computers! - Info of the day

On Sat, May 14, 2005 at 10:09:04AM +0100, christos gentsis wrote:

> BTW is there anyone that plan to use his embedded devise until 2038????
> i would happy to see that :P any way embedded devises are there so they
> will have sort life cycle... how long are you going to use them 6
> months???? maximum 1-2 years....
> so there is no any problem....

I assume you are thinking of 'consumer' devices here, ADSL routers,
Satelite 'Set top boxes' and the like that have short lives.

Embeded computing is much bigger than that. I've got a 20 year old
embedded processor controlled microwave oven. (It still knows how to
cook better than I do :-).

All sorts of Industrial machinery have embeded CPUs. I'm a train nut.
In just this field, railways - equipment is expected to have a 30 year
operational life span, and much of it is now driven by embeded
computers, from traffic control signaling systems that have to be
absolutely safe from 'wrong side failures', 'fly by wire' traction power
control to regulate the trains speed, to monitoring the temprature of
the air-conditioning. A train being built right at this very moment,
with a 'train operating system' computer controlling every aspect of
it's operation will probably still be in service in 2038.

With any luck however, the people writing the software for these
things are aware of this issue and are not blindly using signed 32 bit
absolute time values from 1970.

BTW, the machine i'm typing this on WONT have this problem. (Doubt
that it will be still around in 2038 anyway). It's a 64bit platform and
time_t is 64 bit.

It isn't just a linux problem either, it's a generic Unix/C library
problem. Any software system that uses a signed 32bit number from 1970
to represent time. I have a vague recolection that there was another
popular system around that also used signed 32bit time, only it's epoch
is 1980. Those systems will go belly up 10 years after all the ancient
Unix systems. :-)

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