[KwartzLab] Hexadecimal

[Cedric Puddy]

Ohhhh… that's just… the way everything was in the early days of computing -- if there was a choice to be made, no matter how small, it would be done both ways by competing groups.  Thank goodness that sort of thing never happens any more; our maturity and communications technologies have combined to make such dust-ups just a quant historic artifact to be wondered at.

Thanks ever so much Michael, for learning me something new today,

	All the Best,

	-Cedric

On 2012-12-04, at 1:10 PM, Michael Dunn wrote:

> But IBM traditionally used the slash with O (letter), not 0 like everyone else (number). I love standards. There are so many of them.
> 
>   At 11:53 AM -0500 12/4/12, Cedric Puddy wrote:
>> A "slashed" 0 is for when clarity between "0" and "O" (zero and capital letter "o") matters greatly.
>> 
>> Traditional console/terminal fonts take pains to distinguish the two, since, on a computer, one cannot be certain that there will be context to distinguish the two.  In "normal" communication, it's rarely a problem, because we usually have context to refer to.  A special circle of hell is reserved for companies that generate license keys that have both characters, and are printed in a font wherein both characters are nearly identicalŠ :)
>> 
>> It's not just an IBM thing -- I say it was a "pretty much everybody" thing, until we started letting non-computer people use computers, instead of just admire them from a distance.
>> 
>> 	-Cedric
>> 
>> On 2012-12-04, at 12:00 AM, Michael Dunn wrote:
>> 
>>>   At 11:35 PM -0500 12/3/12, Karl Williams wrote:
>>>> My favorite hex number is C0FFEE.
>>> 
>>> Do you remember the "COFFEE" talking machine at the Science Centre? :-)
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> Sometime when I'm bored I'll pick any base, other than ten, and do mind calculations. Base-12 (Duodecimal) is fun.
>>> 
>>> 6x9=42 (base 13)
>>> 
>>> Why does one of my calcs have "Pental"!??!!!??? (base 5)
>>> 
>>> 
>>>>> Doc's offhand comment about IBM and hexadecimal notation piqued my curiosity.
>>> 
>>> Why does IBM use "slashed" 0 for O?
>>> 
>>> 
>>> md
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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>> 
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>>   Cedric Puddy, IS Director            cedric at thinkers.org
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>> 
>> 
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> 
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|  CCj/ClearLine - Unix/NT Administration and TCP/IP Network Services
|  118 Louisa Street, Kitchener, Ontario, N2H 5M3, 519-489-0478
\________________________________________________________
   Cedric Puddy, IS Director            cedric at thinkers.org
     PGP Key Available at:              http://www.thinkers.org/cedric