<story><title>Why is Wednesday, November 17, 1858 the base time for OpenVMS?</title><url>https://www.slac.stanford.edu/~rkj/crazytime.txt</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>technofiend</author><text>As found here [1] but variations are all over the net.&lt;p&gt;In 1998, a programmer who had been working on Y2K fixes started to get anxious because he couldn&amp;#x27;t believe how pervasive the problem was. He switched from company to company trying to get away from it, but everywhere he went he became regarded as the Y2K expert and immediately became the team lead for that company&amp;#x27;s Y2K contingencies. He finally had a nervous breakdown, quit his job, and decided he wanted to be knocked unconscious when the Y2K actually came about.&lt;p&gt;A month before Y2K he was put into an artificial coma and cooled down to a near cryogenic easily sustained long term life support.&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately the life support notification system had a Y2K bug, and no one revived him for 8000 years.&lt;p&gt;Finally he was found and revived. He woke up, and saw himself surrounded by lots of glass, light, stainless steel, and tall beautiful people in white robes. He asked if he was in Heaven.&lt;p&gt;They replied, &amp;quot;No, this is Chicago. Actually but it&amp;#x27;s a lot like Heaven to someone like you.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Someone like me?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;You are from the 20th century. Many of the problems that existed in your lifetime have been solved for thousands of years. There is no hunger and no disease. There is no scarcity, or strife between races and creeds.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;What year is it now?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Yeah, about that - it&amp;#x27;s the year 9,998. You see, the year 10,000 is coming up, and we understand you know something called COBOL?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;[1]
&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;ProgrammerHumor&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;3aakb8&amp;#x2F;the_tale_of_a_y2k_programmer_from_the_1900s&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;ProgrammerHumor&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;3aakb8&amp;#x2F;the...&lt;/a&gt;?</text></comment>
<story><title>Why is Wednesday, November 17, 1858 the base time for OpenVMS?</title><url>https://www.slac.stanford.edu/~rkj/crazytime.txt</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>tapland</author><text>&amp;gt; OpenVMS
should have no trouble with time until: 31-JUL-31086 02:48:05.47.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d suggest others working on OpenVMS check their C compilers before forgetting about the 2038 bug.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s fun when OpenVMS shows up here! Any other younglings fiddling with it?</text></comment>