2038

The year 2038 problem involves your computer, the year 2038, and the same needless paranoia present during the Y2K debacle.

Most C programs use a library called standard time library, which establishes a 4-byte format for the storage of time values. This format assigns the value 0 to January 1, 1970 at 12:00:00 am, which is the beginning of time for the computer clock. Anything after that is expressed by the number of seconds passed after that time. So 919642718, or 919,642,718 seconds, would be February 21, 1999 at 16:18:38, U.S. Pacific time.

The problem comes when the 4-byte integer's maximum value is reached. This would be 2,147,483,647, or January 19, 2038. It's a relatively easy thing to fix, however. Well-written programs can be recompiled with 8-byte integers.

There's also the 2116 problem, the 2184 problem, and Apple's 29,940 problem.