At 04:44 PM 8/5/99 -0500, Laith wrote:

I have interpreted this to be some sort of glitch in computation with 
a similar cause as the infamous year 2000 rollover bug (gods how I 
hate that glitch).

However I am unable to figure out what you are getting at exactly

nom_de_plume.

I hold a degree in Computer Science and yet I don't get what you are 
referring to as if it were self evident.

Please remember many people on this list are not Computer Nerds like 
myself and so have little hope of knowing the exact concept you are 
spouting.

Lathrop L Preston

	OOOkay.. the _short_ version. Unlike most other systems, 
Unix (and Linux as well, I'm told) keeps track of time in a 
unique format.. the number of elapsed seconds since a date in
1970, if I recall correctly. It uses a 32 bit long variable to
store the elapsed seconds. That's a fairly large number, but it
WILL overflow eventually.

	This means that in 2038 AD, the number will overflow the
space  alloted, not unlike the y2k error (2 digits for the year
when you really needed three), and Unix systems that haven't 
corrected for this will start having hiccups.

	It's a little esoteric, but not hard to understand, if
you have the background at hand. And really, it's a lot easier
to patch than the y2k bug.

	Hope that helps.

	Ed Becerra

	"Dreamers may die, but the Dream is eternal.."