Comment by numpad0

OT but why isn't longnow format LSB(LS Digit) first? 8102, 2102, etc. The problem is that years as variables are often processed as left aligned fixed length MSB first, so it's hard to make year processing code robust over wide ranges of time. If it had been LSB/LSD first, overflow checks can be just a truncation.

8102 and 2102 clearly belong to same age, 5491 and 8391 are more far apart but it's visually apparent that they share two LSDs, and a C program that displays rate of return of a 01-year bond will only have to care at most "654" part of year 654321 entered by user.

"02012" is more perplexing and it can be longer by whole 16 bits[than regular notation] or so[on some systems].

edit: edited for basic clarity