Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder9.news.weretis.net!news.nk.ca!rocksolid2!i2pn2.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Justisaur <justisaur@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Subject: Re: does anyone even use usenet
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2024 09:00:00 -0700
Organization: i2pn2 (i2pn.org)
Message-ID: <95675a14b924c3ead592eaf1e4c4b91b855847d6@i2pn2.org>
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On 8/14/2024 1:59 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> On Tue, 13 Aug 2024 08:59:47 -0700, Justisaur <justisaur@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> Looks like you can still register it if you already had a key.
>>
>> I apparently have it already installed, but I don't have a key (maybe I
>> do buried somewhere on an old backup, but not for the latest version.)
>>
>> Also found that there's an issue with it that it won't be able to handle
>> posts on or after 19 January 2038, so mark your calendars, 13.3... years
>> from now you'll need to get a different newsreader.
> 
> 
> Sounds like Agent (or perhaps NNTP?) is calculating its time based on
> 2**32 seconds. This is a known issue with A LOT of software, and is
> similar to the Y2K bug. Programs count how many seconds have passed
> since 1 Jan 1970, an calculate the current date from there. The number
> is stored in a 32-bit integer. But once that overflows (e.g., more
> than 2,147,483,647 seconds have gone by since 1 Jan 1970), computers
> will roll-over and think the date is 2 billion seconds (give or take)
> BEFORE that date (sometime in 1910, I think).
> 
> Like Y2K, the problem is solvable by increasing the size of the
> integer being counted. Many modern programs 2**64 seconds (starting,
> again, from 1 Jan 1970), which allows a total count numbering in the
> BILLIONS of years. Perhaps our distant ancestors may curse us for our
> short-sightedness, but that seems sufficient for now. ;-)

TIL

> This Epochalypse has been known about for years and years (even as far
> back as the late 90s, when people were fixing the Y2K issue, it came
> up as the next potential snafu in calculating time). Many systems
> (including Linux, MacOS and Windows*) have already been updated to
> correct the problem but there are doubtlessly thousands of critical
> systems that won't get fixed until only a few years before 2038. I
> have faith, though, that both Agent and Usenet will see correction
> long before that.

Forte' seems to be dead, their usenet service is down, it's not open 
source, you can't actually buy it anymore, not to mention it's last 
update was 10 years ago.  So I doubt it'll be updated.

I don't know if the other readers have the same issue, and the most 
popular ones last update is from 14+ years ago. At least those are open 
source and someone might update them.

At least Thunderbird is still being updated.  Though from what I've been 
reading those updates seem to be making it worse as a newsreader, and it 
isn't even as good as those 14+ year old ones.

I hadn't considered Usenet itself might be affected, but it makes sense.

-- 
-Justisaur

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