HP-UX in the year 2054?

[Duncan Edmonstone]

Just for fun, but I thought you might enjoy this...

I was watching the Tom Cruise film "Minority Report" the other day, when I noticed something that made me double-take...

About 85-90 minutes in, Tom's character (Anderton) has kidnapped a "pre-cog" and gone to see his tech nerd friend Rufus Riley who runs a Virtual Reality arcade.

As they walk through his arcade you catch a glimpse of some of Rufus's servers - and yes, they are old HP Enterprise racks:

http://yfrog.com/2sminrep1j
http://yfrog.com/miminrep2j


We couldn't decide internally whther these were HP9000, HP3000 or something else (maybe DTCs?), but I'd like to think Rufus runs his VR systems on HP-UX!

Maybe time to upgrade to Integrity?

;oD

Duncan

[Pete Randall]

Duncan,

I have to ask what you were doing watching a Tom Cruise film? ;%)

He lost me after the Mission Impossible ego indulgence series.

I'm just hoping that by the time I reach the ripe old age of 104 (in 2054), they won't have the need for those huge racks, or, if they do, each rack will contain trays containing hundreds of millions of itty-bitty servers that would run rings around anything we have today.

And OF COURSE they would be running HP-UX! What else?


Pete

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Duncan:

Well, one thing is a sure bet --- as 32-bit servers, they will have experienced a time warp in January 2038 and thus have no idea that it's 2054 :-}

Regards!

...JRF...

[Steven E. Protter]

My two shekel(44 cents)

I think HP-UX has a fair chance of being around if HP manages it properly in the year 2054.

I would think at age 89, I will be happy to have a pulse.

Definitely time for an Integrity upgrade. I noticed the racks when I saw the film last year, didn't give them much notice.

SEP

[Bill Hassell]

They are probably HP3000's, left over in the property room from Terminator-2. That floor that they blew up had 7925 disks and lots of other HP3000 stuff. I loved seeing bullet holes (OK, special effects paint balls) in the old stuff.

2054? As James stated, 2038 is the end of classic Unix systems. Not even the 64bit OS introduced more than a decade ago fixed the Y2K38 problem. In fact, Y2K38 is affecting us right now:

http://blog.sourcedirect.com/2010/09/y2k38-is-starting-to-creep-in/

[Jan van den Ende]

Hi,

>>>
2054? As James stated, 2038 is the end of classic Unix systems. Not even the 64bit OS introduced more than a decade ago fixed the Y2K38 problem. In fact, Y2K38 is affecting us right now:
<<<

Sorry, I could not resist!

They might be running a Virtual Environment, hosting OpenVMS.
That DOES have a similar issue coming, but not before 3136 AD ...

:-)

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

[Dennis Handly]

>Bill: Not even the 64bit OS introduced more than a decade ago fixed the Y2K38 problem.

Funny, I was talking to a kernel engineer about this yesterday. The 64 bit time_t will return a supported value for up to year 9999. And a 64 bit ctime(3) will handle them too.

And recently I found there are bunch of time64_t and *_64 ctime functions for 32 bit mode on 11.31.

But I doubt very many 32 bit HP-UX commands use this new interface.
And of course stat(2) data structure on disk still are 32 bit. And likely lots more places.

[melvyn burnard]

personally, I will not care as I will have been long retirred if I am still alive

[Bill Hassell]

> Dennis: Yes, I was aware of the 64bit time interfaces, but as you said, not very many current commands use them. So while HP-UX may be OK, lots of commands need updating. Well, we've got a few years to fix them...

[Alzhy]

Those are HP9000 N-Class servers or just a facade thereof on the ersthwhile HP Enterprise Racks. We actually still have a couple of N-Class (PA8700's) humming along just fine. All are booting off the SAN so whatevr happens to the local ancient 8GB to 18GB HDDs and their SCSI controllers -- we'll not be affected.

HP-UX in the year 2054? Integrity?

HP-UX - yes there is some possibly it will still be around but definitely not on the Integrity Chip.

Around that year, OSes will be obsolete. "Servers" will be IT Utility building blocks. No need to have very large SMP multi-core systems. Smaller systems can possibly just be interconnected. Cloud Systems have advacned. IT may ultmately be a "Utility" by then.

[SoorajCleris]

Whatever ; I enjoyed this thread .. great observation ..

Thanks to Duncan!!!! Appreciated too.

Regards,
Sooraj

[Alzhy]

Other possibilities in 2054?

My kids will probably be migrant/expat workers in India, China, Brazil or Russia (aka the BRIC bloc) - trying to earn a living.

BPO Operations in the United States has started to set foot. As Call centers in India become more expensive, most global companies have shifted BPOs to the United States - whose population would have reached 800 million by 2050 and where the cost of operations have gone so dramatically competitive.

Meanwhile, I am in my 80's and about to pay off my mortgage.

[Rita C Workman]

Here's another possibility.

The world has survived the 2038 system disaster, but "The Cloud" has collapsed, leaving the world so paranoid about it's data and resources that the new buzzword in "The Safe Room".
Yes, we have gone full circle again in the technology, so security is again restored by de-centralizing resources. Hence the crazed need for HPUX servers (even old ones), by everyone, which explains Rufus' hardware configuration.
And as Alzy so correctly points out the USA is deperate to regain it's position in the IT world that it is now seeking old and aged UNIX Admin's with scripting skills who can handle the command line. People who love Posix and Korn and yes...P-e-r-l.
So, suddenly retired oft forgotten UNIX Admin's are in the drivers seat and commanding salaries they always deserved.

Life is good....HPUX Rules! Root Rocks!

Teehee,
Rita

[Bob E Campbell]

I have heard that we intend to fix the Y2k38 problem. The solution will allow for times spanning the expected life of the universe.

I am upset, by 2038 I will have burned through all my retirement savings. Didn't all the Cobol jockys get bonus checks for Y2K? That was supposed to be our turn ;-)

[TwoProc]

You'll wake up in your cave, rub some sticks together until enough friction is caused to start a small fire. However it doesn't light because there's not enough oxygen left to get it lit today, so you'll go outside, sit down with your carcass of dead rat, and, using your flint stone knife, try and carve out a hunk of delicious hind quarter that just so "happens" to be good enough to consume raw (as if you had a choice).

You'll "tweet" about the whole experience by sticking your hands to the cave wall, and use your mouth to spray a slurry of crushed stone, mud and spit in order to leave some amazing hand prints as a testament to your delicious meal. Two or three others (the sum total remnants of human civilization) stop by to have a look at your beautiful handiwork. Everyone smiles through their remaining couple of teeth in amazement until they get tired from lack of adequate oxygen, and go to sleep...

In several million years, a sentient being, descended from roaches, looks at the wall and wonders why such an apparent lower life form would feel the need to hold obvious religious ceremonies in honor of an assumed "appendage-and-mud god". Another sentient being dismisses the whole thing as a happen stance of natural caustic atmospheric erosion of a bygone era which just somehow resembles something a non-insect could put on a wall. But, of course, everyone knows better than this, as no being other than insects have ever had enough brain power to perform such a wilful act of self-determination.

Years later, a group of the species are watching a holographic presentation on the wall, as they renew their discussion of possible natural evolution of the species. A few of the class members secretly blaarghch their thoughts about the concept that they may be descendants of the beings that made the marks on the wall. Through mental telepathy onto the popular new UNEEDATHORAX(R) bacterial data transference storage system(c) (quark based), for all of their friends to contemplate later on that night while their communal hive mother isn't paying attention(lots of babies coming). The collective thought snickers from the group to let all involved how ridiculous the concern of their elders about the ugly stone, mud and spit on a wall really is, as they absent mindedly smash minuscule humanoid looking "ants" on the space-walks with the hard, sharpened, pointed brains on their ends of their appendages. Snarrghk!!!

[Dennis Handly]

>Bob: I have heard that we intend to fix the Y2k38 problem

Fix is a little to strong a word. We will have an equivalent to a time64_t solution, but programmers will have to change any database or file sources.

[Bob E Campbell]

So we will get to come out of retirement in 25 years! Good news Dennis ;-)

[vishnu.khandare]

Hi Duncan,

Appreciate ur keen Observation...

Hope HP Unix Will last long till the end of World....

Enjoying working on HP Unix.

Thanks for sharing this kind of observation.


Regards
Vishnu Khandare

[Volker Borowski]

To all the
"Not my problem, will be retired!"
people.

I hope the paymentsystem for your (our) pensions will be migrated to 64 bit by then :-)

Volker (who will be also retired then :-)