From jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU Wed Sep 26 10:24:35 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: jimc@math.ucla.edu X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_3_2_2); 26 Sep 2001 17:23:48 -0000 Received: (qmail 33902 invoked from network); 26 Sep 2001 17:23:47 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by 10.1.1.223 with QMQP; 26 Sep 2001 17:23:47 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO simba.math.ucla.edu) (128.97.4.125) by mta1 with SMTP; 26 Sep 2001 17:24:34 -0000 Received: from localhost (jimc@localhost) by simba.math.ucla.edu (8.11.3/8.11.3/SuSE Linux 8.11.1-0.5) with ESMTP id f8QHOew01284 for ; Wed, 26 Sep 2001 10:24:40 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: simba.math.ucla.edu: jimc owned process doing -bs Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 10:24:40 -0700 (PDT) To: Subject: Re: [lojban] periodic hexadecimal reminder In-Reply-To: <9orgpt+2n84@eGroups.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: "James F. Carter" On Wed, 26 Sep 2001 thinkit8@lycos.com wrote: > this is just a post to remind everyone that hexadecimal is the > future, and lojban is by default hexadecimal. rafsi will be assigned > for dau-vai, and "ju'u dau" will be used for references to the old > way of doing things. Well... I think number bases are kind of off topic for Lojban, and I wouldn't like to see a big flame war on this topic overload my mailbox. Having written a libc instance including printf and scanf (with a proprietary extension for generalized radix), plus some pretty bizarre stuff for S/360 (yes, that ancient) involving megadigits and decimal arithmetic, I can say from experience that for the computer the choice of radix is not a big deal. For greatest human convenience, maximizing the number of integral divisors of the radix is important, and duodecimal stands out in that property. In a piece of fiction my characters had seven tentacles and used a heptal number system. I really think this is the most important consideration in picking the radix: the number of appendages on the user. On the boss user, and *we* are the boss of the computers. Drifting off topic again: in heptal or duodecimal or decimal or hex or whatever, how do you write the radix? 10, of course. The solution I used in the proprietary radix extension was to have the user specify radix-1, that is, 6 -> heptal, f -> hex, 9 -> decimal, etc. James F. Carter Voice 310 825 2897 FAX 310 206 6673 UCLA-Mathnet; 6115 MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA, USA 90095-1555 Email: jimc@math.ucla.edu http://www.math.ucla.edu/~jimc (q.v. for PGP key)