Sorry if you crashed (W95 FYI: Chaos in 2038!)

It was brought to my attention that my posts to these lists have caused
Netscape Mail running on Win95 to crash. I tried to test this by
sending myself a message but was unable to run NS Mail at all.

I'm glad to say I found the problem: In the course of a HD upgrade my
system clock had somehow built a 100-year bridge to the 21st century
and was set to 2096. Subsequent testing shows that dates beyond 2038
cause many unwanted side effects in Win95, including the aforementioned
crashes when NS Mail receives a message so dated.

Having returned to the present, I retrieved my previously sent test
message dated 2096, and, sure enough, NS Mail crashed.

Sorry if anyone experienced this problem. It was not intentional.

(Also sorry that I rewrote/resent a 'transparent text' post on
www-style. I thought one of these crashes had trashed the message.)

David Perrell

Received on Friday, 22 November 1996 20:21:52 UTC