[mjevans]

I think they've over-corrected from the two digits are enough truncation that was common in computers between the 1950s and ~2000. It started to become less common then, but the phase out is arguably still going or stalled until things just die.

However OCTAL (leading zero) prefixing of a text mode number fails on a number of points:

* It's still a fixed register size (5 characters), which will overflow on the year 100000 AD.

* It's confusing, everyone else.

* It's not technically correct. (human behavior)

Truncating to two year digits was confusing because ambiguity. There is no ambiguity if a number encoded in decimal uses precisely the number of characters it needs. That's how normal humans normally write numbers.