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Zune
Peter Hull
Member #1,136
March 2001

Did you hear about the Death of the Zunes?
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/31/1428254
Weird story, seems to be true. Has this happened to anyone?

Pete

bamccaig
Member #7,536
July 2006
avatar

Initially I was going to ask if those are made in the same factories as Xbox 360s, but after reading the article it sounds more like a firmware bug. :P

CGamesPlay
Member #2,559
July 2002
avatar

Uh oh, I hope not. I just got a 30GB Zune in my Bag of Crap from Woot, which my girlfriend laid claim to. Hope I didn't give her a defective product :P

'Course, I can't check, (though she says she didn't) she left it running all night or something, so the battery is dead. Maybe that's part of the problem? It seems to be charging, at least.

Hey, maybe they will recall these and I can get a shiny new one.

--
Tomasu: Every time you read this: hugging!

Ryan Patterson - <http://cgamesplay.com/>

Thomas Harte
Member #33
April 2000
avatar

Slashdot said:

There are multiple reports springing up all over the internet of a mass suicide of Microsoft 30Mb Zune players globally

I thought they'd still yet to launch outside the USA and Canada? And let's be honest, it's not exactly the sort of device you'd bother importing — second rate MP3 players are available globally. I'm definitely a "dump the hardware, incorporate the software into the smartphone platform" advocate...

EDIT: incidentally, what is considered the market leading MP3 player at the minute? I love the games and browser on my iPod Touch, but I did buy it purely for the development opportunities and I rate it very poorly as an MP3 player for the simple reason that it's impossible to control the playback without looking at the screen, with the effect that you can't skip tracks/etc without taking the thing out of your pocket and staring intently at it, which I find to be a major design flaw. I have the 1st generation device (that being what was in the Apple refurbished store), so I don't even have physical volume buttons.

ReyBrujo
Moderator
January 2001
avatar

Hehehehe, this is what happens when you use octals to save a few bits in the year field :P

--
RB
光子「あたしただ…奪う側に回ろうと思っただけよ」
Mitsuko's last words, Battle Royale

Roy Underthump
Member #10,398
November 2008
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What? The Y2.009K problem? Naturally it's "user error", since MicroSoft makes flawless products.

I love America -- I love the rights we used to have
George Carlin

Thomas Harte
Member #33
April 2000
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I appreciate it's a joke, but wouldn't octal digits have broken at the start of 2008?

Roy Underthump
Member #10,398
November 2008
avatar

I tried Googling to see if the Zune came out in 2001, but all I could find were posts about how Microsoft didn't invent it :-X

[EDIT]
This seems to "announce" a new product called Zune in 2006

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x5629333

I love America -- I love the rights we used to have
George Carlin

Thomas Harte
Member #33
April 2000
avatar

The Zune definitely didn't come out in 2001. That's when the iPod first came out, and the desktop OS rules of "Apple consolidates existing ideas into a best-in-class user interface, subsequently Microsoft do the same thing but worse, Apple put a whole bunch of people off with some notable mistakes and their stink of arrogance" seem to have applied without Microsoft being competitive on price.

ReyBrujo
Moderator
January 2001
avatar

Oh, yup, you are right :P

Was reading the forum thread at Zune Boards and just now they cut it down for maintenance.

(Edited: This one is fun ;D)

(Edited 2: It was the leap year!)

--
RB
光子「あたしただ…奪う側に回ろうと思っただけよ」
Mitsuko's last words, Battle Royale

Goalie Ca
Member #2,579
July 2002
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y2k-8!!

-------------
Bah weep granah weep nini bong!

HardTranceFan
Member #7,317
June 2006
avatar

How the hell can a leap year freeze up a MP3 player? It must have been a big load of programmed crap to elicit that type of behaviour.

--
"Shame your mind don't shine like your possessions do" - Faithless (I want more part 1)

bamccaig
Member #7,536
July 2006
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kazzmir
Member #1,786
December 2001
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Evert
Member #794
November 2000
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Quote:

incidentally, what is considered the market leading MP3 player at the minute?

I don't know, but I can say that I'm quite happy with the Cowon iAudio I bought less than a year ago after doing some research. The firmware is a bit quirky, but other than that I have no complaints.

Thomas Harte
Member #33
April 2000
avatar

And is there any truth (or value) to the reports that the Zune is date obsessed (ie, enough to not allow the user to set the time or date and to run its calculation as a blocking event immediately upon boot) as a side effect of its time limited DRM?

The BBC have gone with the headline "Microsoft Zune affected by 'bug'". So maybe 2008 was the year that, per the BBC, the software meaning of bug stopped being recognised by mainstream society?

EDIT: I'm confident it's not some idiotic sub-editor who doesn't know the difference between single and double quotes, as the opening paragraph states crippled software as a fact, not an attributed charge.

bamccaig
Member #7,536
July 2006
avatar

Thomas Harte said:

The BBC have gone with the headline "Microsoft Zune affected by 'bug'". So maybe 2008 was the year that, per the BBC, the software meaning of bug stopped being recognised by mainstream society?

What? ??? Mainstream society doesn't really know what a software bug is... They just know the software doesn't work the way it's supposed to... Maybe I don't get what you're saying because I haven't checked yet what the Zune's problem is...? :-/

Roy Underthump
Member #10,398
November 2008
avatar

A curious similarity here from bygone days

http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Classic-WTF-The-Bug-That-Shut-Down-Computers-WorldWide.aspx

[EDIT]
I always wanted a big Wang ;D

I love America -- I love the rights we used to have
George Carlin

Thomas Harte
Member #33
April 2000
avatar

Quote:

What? Mainstream society doesn't really know what a software bug is...

I think they do, at least to the extent that single quotes in a heading like that just look like someone meant to use double quotes and messed up.

The Zune's problem is that someone who is scared about number theory wrote an extremely odd division routine that simply doesn't work on day 366 of a leap year. All the Zunes should be back to normal by now (especially as the relevant routine allegedly runs in GMT irrespective of the user's timezone), though they'll need a power cycle.

EDIT: per Kazzmir's link:

1year = ORIGINYEAR; /* = 1980 */
2 
3while (days > 365)
4{
5 if (IsLeapYear(year))
6 {
7 if (days > 366)
8 {
9 days -= 366;
10 year += 1;
11 }
12 }
13 else
14 {
15 days -= 365;
16 year += 1;
17 }
18}

ReyBrujo
Moderator
January 2001
avatar

Microsoft keeps using that days since 1980s in new hardware... discouraging. They could have used the seconds since 1970 :P

They could have just used three variables instead of a single one. Memory should not be a problem nowadays.

--
RB
光子「あたしただ…奪う側に回ろうと思っただけよ」
Mitsuko's last words, Battle Royale

Thomas Harte
Member #33
April 2000
avatar

Quote:

They could have just used three variables instead of a single one. Memory should not be a problem nowadays.

I think possibly that code grabs the value from the RTC and decodes it into three variables. As inspection of the code reveals, on day 366 of a leap year it loops infinitely, making a device appear completely broken since this code is performed immediately after power-on and no other code may run until it is complete.

HardTranceFan
Member #7,317
June 2006
avatar

kazzmir said:

Supposedly, this is the reason for the lockup [zuneboards.com].

So I was right in my assertion:

I said:

It must have been a big load of programmed crap to elicit that type of behaviour.

Either that, or they rushed system testing. But then, one would be worried if Microsoft released anything that didn't require a patch later on.

--
"Shame your mind don't shine like your possessions do" - Faithless (I want more part 1)

TestSubject
Member #8,989
August 2007
avatar

if(days > (365+(year%4==0)))
{
    days = 1;
    year++;
}

Would that work or am I missing something?

Thomas Harte
Member #33
April 2000
avatar

Quote:

Would that work or am I missing something?

I don't think it would, since it would surely only ever give 1980 or 1981? Also, whether it's a leap year is a tiny bit more complicated than just every four years — though I expect you've noticed that it isn't actually any more complicated than that over the expected lifespan of a Zune?

Roy Underthump
Member #10,398
November 2008
avatar

Here's a c proggie to play with based on the code snippet

I love America -- I love the rights we used to have
George Carlin

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