The only reason why a system can only represent the range from 1900-1999 is when the system uses characters (ascii decimal digits) or BCD encoded digits. It wou

The only reason why a system can only represent the range from 1900-1999 is when the system uses characters (ascii decimal digits) or BCD encoded digits. It would have been very unlikely for any integer-based encoding system to have had a cutoff date at 1999 (e.g. int8 would need an epoch at 1872 to rollover after 1999), so I don't think signed vs unsigned makes a difference here.