Originally Posted by
Check Airman
For those of us not so inclined, what's the significance of 2^32?
Counters, and microprocessor registers in general, typically have a capacity that corresponds to some multiple of 8 bits.
For example a 16-bit counter isn't capable of counting beyond 65,535 (one less than 2^16). Using one for an application that requires counting to values higher than that will produce unpredictable results.
In the case of the 787 issue, whatever the maximum value that the counter can accommodate is (2^32 is being suggested, equivalent to 4,294,967,295 clock ticks), that value is reached after approximately 51 days.