2009: The Apple NewtonOS 2.1 Year 2010 bug

For the dedicated Mac users still using the Newton MessagePad as their primary digital personal assistant, a major bug has been reported. According to a report on the issue from 40Hz, "the NewtonOS has a bug in handling years past 18:48:31 on January 5, 2010. The bug is located in the NewtonScript interface of certain time functions, and it is caused by an overflow of a NewtonScript integer value. This bug seems to only occur in NewtonOS 2.1 devices."

The 40Hz report goes on to say:

"The overflow happens in all NewtonScript functions which use seconds as the resolution. In contrast to the 32 bit unsigned integer used by the C functions, NewtonScript integers are only 30 bit wide. While the C functions can handle times from 1904 until 2040 without an overflow, the NewtonScript functions had to be designed with a smaller range of applicable times due to the limited precision.

The seconds-based functions are implemented by taking the value of the real-time clock, subtracting the offset to January 1st 1993, and converting the results to a NewtonScript integer. This limited range causes an overflow on Tuesday, January 5, 2010 at 6:48:31 PM.

This is the list of affected functions:

• SetSysAlarm
• TimeInSeconds
• TimeToTimeInSeconds
• TimeInSecondsToTime"

The article linked below contains some possible fixes for the bug. 40Hz also released a patch which you can read about (also linked below).

Resources
Read the 40Hz report of the Newton Year 2010 problem.
Read about the Newton Year 2010 patch from 40Hz.
Read more about the Apple Newton MessagePad on Wikipedia.
Read TUAW's report of the Apple Newton MessagePad bug.

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Resources

40Hz report

Newton Year 2010 patch

Apple Newton MessagePad

TUAW's report

Let us know!

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