bluescreen

[Mikemk]

Type 2^34359738368 into a calculator on a 32-bit computer.

[ASMMan]

Are you talking about Microsoft Windows's calc? I'm not on MS Windows currently; in my current system it just given an error message.

[AJ]

On a fully patched Windows XP box:

Windows XP Calculator with Result of 2^34359738368

Cheers,
Adam

[Brendan]

Hi,

Type 2^34359738368 into a calculator on a 32-bit computer.

I tried it on Kcalc (running on 64-bit Gentoo); and it caused the calculator to crash (segmentation fault in "__gmpn_copyi()").

I suspect an out of memory problem - e.g. someone forgetting to test if "malloc()" returned NULL (or possibly someone using C++, where "new" exists to ensure software crashes unexpectedly).


Cheers,

Brendan

[Mikemk]

Ubuntu 12.04. Not sure the name of the program I used

[Love4Boobies]

So you started the thread by explaining how to make the OS crash without mentioning the OS or the program that did it...

[Mikemk]

So you started the thread by explaining how to make the OS crash without mentioning the OS or the program that did it...

Good point. I was wondering what the number would be if my entire ram was filled with 0xff. I didn't realize that it would take my entire ram to calculate it.

[xenos]

It's 2^(RAM bits) - 1

[darkinsanity]

I tried it on Kcalc (running on 64-bit Gentoo); and it caused the calculator to crash (segmentation fault in "__gmpn_copyi()").

I used Kcalc on netrunner 12.12, it hung for a couple of seconds, took 1.680680 gigabytes of RAM and then said "6.48067178374e+2082970051".

[xenos]

6.48067178374e+2082970051

Doesn't look right. 34359738368 ln 2 / ln 10 is a bit less than 10343311892, so one should expect something between 1e+10343311891 and 1e+10343311892. To be more precise:

2^34359738368 = 10^(34359738368 Log[2]/Log[10] - 10343311891) * 1e+10343311891,

which is approximately 8.6013834471e+10343311891. Indeed, Mathematica agrees:

Code: Select all

In[1]:= Timing[2.0^34359738368.0]
Out[1]= {0., 8.6014*10^10343311891}

...and calculates this even too fast to measure the time it takes.

[darkinsanity]

Doesn't look right.

Then Kcalc either wanted to troll me, or I mistyped something.

[CWood]

Tried it in KCalc just now, got 1. What?

[Mikemk]

I used gcalctool.

[dozniak]

I used gcalctool.

Based on you description (should take all the RAM), the bluescreen cannot possibly be instant because it takes some time to fill all the ram, and then a system would probbaly swap for a while.

And then the calculator process will be terminated by oom killer; still no bsod.

[Mikemk]

I used gcalctool.

Based on you description (should take all the RAM), the bluescreen cannot possibly be instant because it takes some time to fill all the ram, and then a system would probbaly swap for a while..

OK, fine. I'll take the word instant out.