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From: Charles Hixson <charleshixsn@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Y21C Bug
Date: 2000/01/04
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Robert Dewar wrote:

>
> Indeed it is a HUGE effort to make some code 64-bit clean, and
> my guess is that unices will support 32-bit code for a long
> time, and it will be a bad earthquake when there is a
> requirement to change legacy 32-bit code to make it 64-bit
> compatible (as will possibly happen at the date blow up time
> (which will happen in our life times for at least some of us).
>

But I believe that it would be a mistake to begin conversions of
programs to 64-bit mode for the next couple of years (except in
special circumstances).  After that...

With 64 bit numbers available, I propose a new time standard, based
around 64-bit floats.  We need a SMALL floating number (16 bits?) to
specify the millennium, and a large floating number (64 bits) to
specify the time.  (0 = center of the millennium, +- 1 = +- 500
years, etc.).  Current Millennium = 2 (years 2,000->2,999, CE).  (I
allow for a year 0 before the year 1, if you wish to print that out
as 1 BC, that's merely a formatting issue.)

This would let us be as accurate as we have data available almost
all the time (i.e, creation of universe to end of universe [note:
the millennium was a floating point number]).