[Cialug] date question

[Daniel A. Ramaley]

On Monday February 9 2009 11:19, Colin Burnett wrote:
>On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 11:12 AM, Eric Junker <eric at eric.nu> wrote:
>> Allen Kiddoo wrote:
>>> googled and can't find answer- What is "1234567890"
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time
>>
>> Another important date will be 2038 when 32-bit timestamps overflow.
>
>I'm not worried.  Three decades to switch to 64-bit.  If 32-bit is
>still dominant in 3 decades then I'd be more worried about that than
>the time overflowing.

When operating systems are switched to 64-bit, is the time counter 
automatically upgraded to 64-bit? What about old software that forces a 
32-bit counter? I'm guessing that enough software will have already 
been updated that the transition will be a quiet whimper that 
non-computer geeks won't even be aware of, unlike the Y2k transition 
where everyone was freaking out about it with survivalists buying 
generators and stocking up on canned foods and bottled water.

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Dan Ramaley                            Dial Center 118, Drake University
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