Year 2038 the end of 32-bit computers!

  • 25-12-2017
  • programming
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The year 2038 will really be a horrifying year for computers and computer programmers as it will mark the end of all 32-bit computers and electronic devices using 32-bit system.

So here is everything you need to know about the 2038 32-bit computer epoc. When all 32-bit computers and devices will start to crash and function abnormly.

The reason behind the crash is the clock yes! its the clock which is the culpit behind this epoc. All 32-bit Unix-like systems store and manipulate time in this Unix time format, so the year 2038 problem is sometimes referred to as the Unix Millennium Bug. All Unix and Unix like system stores or calculates time in a 32-bit integer, which is used as the number of seconds elapsed science 00:00:00 UTC 1st January 1970 which is the date and time it started ticking. So in android which is a Unix like system if you check your calender and go backwards you wont't see dates before 1970.

You can think a 32-bit integer as a 32 places of a digit represented in binary so the maximum value which can be represented with 32 places is 231 - 1 = 2,14,74,83,647 which you can divide and get the date and time which comes to be 03:14:07 on Tuesday, 19 January 2038. Here is a gif from wikipedia showing the crash time.



This problem is caused due to integer overflow which is the result of adding extra bit to a integer which has already used all the storage it has been allocated to use.

Here is the current state of the Unix 32-bit time stamp or the clock ticking in every 32-bit computers and servers.




But this is not a serious concern as by 2038 all the 32-bit computers will already be replaced by 64-bit computers which are really good and uses 64-bit number places to store the ticking clock which is really large and it will be there ticking for a long long time 264 - 1 seconds. So you don't have to worry!

Reference: wikipedia unixtimestamp