Ever realized the secret of Tuesday, 19 January 2038? At 03:14:07 UTC that very day you could try your microwave oven to find things burned, or the machine not working at all. Your car electronics could fail, its doors staying locked forever. Industries working with certain embedded computer systems might come to a sudden halt. Your Ubuntu 37.10 could fail to run, as would many other computerized, large and small systems. Unless the 2038 timer 'bug' is removed on time, which means years before that hour and date! Some software will fail several years earlier when trying to apply data passed January 2038. The problem? Nobody realizes or even knows today what equipment will be carrying the 'bug' still. It is no 'bug' after all, but simply a clock limit for many non-64-bit chip-sets. They are everywhere: from elevators to coffeemachines, from cockpit displays to desktop computers and cars to wristwatches. The lifetime of chips and software learns that many 'old' codes most certainly still will be hidden in equipment and applications in 2038. Why use 64 bits when 32, 16 or even 8 bits suffice for doing their job? We'll find out in hardly 20 years because a simple cure isn't available. Ignoring these time-date quirks might perhaps throw us back in time many years. Not to act now may have peculiar consequences later...

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