32 Bit facts
While investigating facts about 32 Bit, I found out little known, but curios details like:
Gangnam Style was so viral and gathered views so quickly, YouTube had to change the view count system to prevent a stack overflow as the original 32-bit integer system tops out at ~2.14 billion.
In 2038, we will have another Y2K-style software issue with dates, as 32 bit software can't represent time past Tuesday, 19 January 2038. Times beyond that will be stored internally as a negative number, which these systems will interpret as Friday, 13 December 1901
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 40 of the best facts about 32 Bit I managed to collect.
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The number 2147483647 is the biggest possible number in 32-bit computing. In December 2014, "Gangnam Style" exceeded the 32-bit integer limit for view count, necessitating YouTube to upgrade the variable to a 64-bit integer
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When Gangnam Style surpassed ~2.15 billion views on Youtube, the View Counter went negative, causing Youtube to release a statement saying "We never thought a video would be watched in numbers greater than a 32-bit integer (=2,147,483,647 views), but that was before we met PSY."
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YouTube had to update their view count from 32-bit to 64-bit solely because Gangnam Style had too many views.
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PSY's music video 'Gangnam Style' exceeded the 32-bit integer limit (2,147,483,647) for YouTube view count, necessitating YouTube to upgrade the variable to a 64-bit integer limit at 9 quintilian (9,223,372,036,854,775,808).
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Nintendo 64 software rarely took advantage of 64-bit data precision operations. N64 game-titles generally used faster (and more compact) 32-bit data-operations. 32-bit code executed faster and required less storage space (which was at a premium on the N64's cartridges).
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While 32 bit computers can max out at 4GB of RAM, 64 bit computers can theoretically max out at 16.8 million terabytes of RAM.
What is true about 32 bit?
You can easily fact check it by examining the linked well-known sources.
There was only one impossible game of FreeCell in the original Windows 3.1 version. It used a signed, 16-bit integer for the RNG seed. Hence, 32,768 games were possible. The impossible game is number 11982.
Need for Speed the video game first debuted on the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer multimedia unit. The 32-Bit device was released at MSRP$700.00 (USD) in 1993 and was conceived by Trip Hawkins, one of the founders of Electronic Arts. The 3DO faced its demise by 1997 with only 2 million units sold. - source
The 2038 bug (Year of 2038), the next Y2K bug that will reset any 32-bit systems dates back to 1901
The Year 2038 problem, where systems that wrap their UNIX time counters and storing it as 32-bit signed integer will reach its maximum capacity (2,147,483,647 seconds after 1 January 1970), the number will wrap around to become -2147483647 and will mean 13 December 1901 on these systems - source
In June this year, chess.com stopped working on 32 bit ipads because 2^31 games had been played
There is a 64 bit equivalent to the 32 bit Fast Inverse Square magic number - 0x5FE6EB50C7B537A9
YouTube videos have a max number of views of a 32-bit integer (2,147,483,647 views) and Psy's Gangnam Style is the first video to pass that limit.
On 19 January, 2038, at 03:14:07 UTC, 32 bit systems will run out of memory and reset to zero.
In 1994 NEC released a PC-shaped 32-bit successor to the TurboGrafx-16 called the PC-FX, but it was only available only in Japan.
