Year 2038 Bug

There's a lot of fuss (although maybe not enough) about the Year 2000 (or Y2K) bug, for several reasons:

It's a serious problem.
The year 2000 is very near.
Understanding it doesn't require much knowledge of computers -- paper forms also have the bug, and most (but not all!) people understand that with computers, you can't simply cross out "19__" and write "2000".

Here's a little known fact...

Very few people are aware that there is also a Year 2038 (Y2.038K) bug... many computers, operating systems, and programs use a common method of representing the current time -- the number of seconds which have passed since 12:00 AM, January 1, 1970. For technical reasons, most software requires that value to be less than 2^31 (two to the thirty-first power), or roughly 2.1 billion. That number will be reached in early 2038.

You're probably thinking, "Yup... Cliff Claven. There's no way people are going to be using today's computers or software in 2038. This is just useless trivia." (Or maybe I'm underestimating you.) That's exactly what people thought in 1960, but in fact, the biggest remaining Year 2000 problems ARE in programs written 40 years ago and extended ever since.

These programs are components of critical systems used by unimportant institutions such as military, banks, utility companies, etc. Because they have evolved over time, they are very large and complex. Fixing them is extremely difficult, and replacing them is next to impossible.

Ironically (but understandably), the most vital software systems are the least often updated, and are therefore most prone to "date-overflow" bugs. Because they are so important, they can't simply be replaced when a multi-billion-dollar software giant comes out with AutomatedNuclearMissileLauncher 95.

The Year 2000 problem affects people who don't even know how to use a computer. The Year 2038 problem is of similar magnitude.

There are many solutions to the 2038 problem, but in most cases they involve changing and/or replacing systems -- a process which needs to begin as soon as possible.