2 digits?

COBOL wasnt the problem, it was the cost of memory when the systems were written, 2 digits for the year saved you some space and when you had several million dates in your db it added up. When I were a lad working on Honeywell Bull DMIV systems we stored dates as numbers, formatted YYMMDD and used simple greater than, less than tests with home rolled date routines for anything clever. Yes, I am grey and bearded.