Brodies TechBlog

The UNIX operating system is 40 years old this month.

The first truly portable o/s, and the mother of so many of today’s operating systems : Aix; Linux; Apple’s System X. There is even Unix code in windows distribution. What an amazing bit of software. 

Does anyone out there remember the Millenium/Y2k bug? Well there may be a similar issue for Unix and its derivatives in 2038 (go to the end of the linked article). 

Should we be writing 2038 compliance clauses in contracts like we did with y2k? Well for high value contracts I still look for a general “date compliance warranty” based on the old y2k warranty.

And while we are on the subject can I just say that 40 is not old. 40 is the new 30, or at least that is what I’ve been telling myself.

Douglas (as old as Unix) Mathie (topic suggested by Martin English)