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A comment on Ask HN: Is the past disappearing on the web?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: Is the past disappearing on the web? by bloak on Wednesday January 26, 2022 @08:00AM (#30084919)
BBC television programmes used to give the year in Roman numerals, in the copyright notice, I think. It has been suggested that this was to make it harder for people to notice how old the programme was. The same technique wouldn't work so well on a web site because you couldn't do what the BBC did and leave the Roman number on the screen for about 0.5 s so that most people don't have time to decypher it. Also the dates at the end of the last century were particularly hard to read in Roman. Here's an example. Time yourself:

© MCMXCVIII

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Re:Ask HN: Is the past disappearing on the web? by meigwilym on Wednesday January 26, 2022 @09:49AM (#30086068)
> It has been suggested that this was to make it harder for people to notice how old the programme was

This is tempting but I don't know how much credence to give it.

It's more to do with a style that was taken on and kept. My father still writes the month in a date using a Roman numeral, e.g. 25/XII/21.

The date format has been around for many years. There weren't that many BBC programmes made, even over the course of many years. To try and convince viewers that a programme was not "old" was difficult. It might be black and white, and the quality certainly would have looked dated.

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Re:Ask HN: Is the past disappearing on the web? by mark-r on Wednesday January 26, 2022 @01:35PM (#30089700)
I think the convention started with movies.
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Re:Ask HN: Is the past disappearing on the web? by LocalH on Wednesday January 26, 2022 @08:13AM (#30084997)
I got it in seconds because I used your context of being a date "at the end of the last century", see the VIII and immediately guess "1998"
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Re:Ask HN: Is the past disappearing on the web? by brimble on Wednesday January 26, 2022 @04:40PM (#30092313)
Common in movies, before home media or even broadcast was A Thing, and in some other places. I don't think that's the explanation.
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Re:Ask HN: Is the past disappearing on the web? by raverbashing on Wednesday January 26, 2022 @08:08AM (#30084960)
I'm not sure how true this urban legend is but it is not too hard once you get the hang of it

(And dates aside, how the program ages is more important)

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Re:Ask HN: Is the past disappearing on the web? by INTPenis on Wednesday January 26, 2022 @08:09AM (#30084964)
Like a true millennial I just entered it into Google and was surprised at the result.
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Re:Ask HN: Is the past disappearing on the web? by kps on Wednesday January 26, 2022 @09:42AM (#30085970)
I was disappointed by [MCMXCVIII]; [MCMXCVIII in decimal] does better, but I really hoped for more like the unit conversion panel.
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Re:Ask HN: Is the past disappearing on the web? by JMS2021 on Wednesday January 26, 2022 @02:03PM (#30090162)
1998
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