[no subject]

A similar limitation applies to HFS, which uses the 32-bit time notation
to store file dates.  It will expire in 2040.  (I expect Apple's HFS+
has extended this limit.)

A lesser problem (not due in our limetimes) is that GS/OS represents the
year internally as an 8-bit integer, as an offset from 1900.  This will
run out in 2155.  This isn't actually used on disk.

> On a parallel note, the Y2K fixes for PCs...did they
> just change the Y2K bug into a 2100 bug?

Probably.

The FAT file system uses a packed date representation similar to ProDOS,
but with a different interpretation for the year field: it is the number
of years since 1980, and will therefore expire after 2107.

In addition, there are some parts of MS-DOS which won't handle dates
after 2099.


In more general terms, the same sort of problems are going to keep
coming up indefinitely.  Any date representation which has a fixed
amount of space is going to hit a maximum value at some point.

I quite like the idea of using an ASCII string to store the date,
allowing four digits to hold the year.  Leave provision for a future
version of the file system which extends this to five digits, to be
implemented around 9999.  Repeat geometrically.  Hard disks should grow
fast enough that the expansion of directory space isn't a taxing
problem.

:-)

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz
Snail mail: P O Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand