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Semi-OT: When did hexadecimal come into common use?

Ignoring the issue of "normal conversation", it must be before 1973 or so. I was a COBOL programmer back then, and I still have some of my IBM IBM 360/370 "cheat cards". In around 1965, I remember hearing about base

12, duodecimal, (referencing Hammurabi?), and in 1967, we covered various bases in math class. I don't remember if we went to base 16, but I'm sure we didn't cover it in the context of a shorthand for binary.

I remember writing an EBCDIC-to-ASCII converter in COBOL, then later writing an ASCII-to-Baudot(6 bit)-to-ASCII converter in PL/M.

I hate being old...

RB

Reply to
Rube Bumpkin
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Someone wished my wife a happy 0x28 birthday last year!

dalai lamah wrote:

rd a

Reply to
Alan Myler

Bendix was more traditional before IBM. Check out

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Thad
Reply to
Thad Smith

It was in use with Bendix computers in the 0-9,U-Z form prior to the mid-60s. Perhaps IBM was the first to use the 0-9,A-F form?

Octal has always been a pain in the rear for use on machines with a 2**n word size.

Reply to
Everett M. Greene

Coos Haak escribió:

In fact, seventy two: 6 * 12 tribes. Although the Bible is well known for its inaccuracy in numbers (such as pi = 3).

Reply to
Ignacio G.T.

One of my colleague had 27, 28 and 29 year birthday parties and after a few years she continued with 30, 31 etc. :-).

Paul

Reply to
Paul Keinanen

I had my 39th a few months ago. But very few are using base 22. At least I got past my 0113rd.

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Reply to
CBFalconer

ancient China use hex. Abacus is a hex device.

go to Chinese medicine store, they are using hex everyday.

Chinese fortune teller is using hex everyday.

larwe wrote:

Reply to
dick

Reply to
dick

Why do you think so? This thread is discussing hexadecimal, base 16 as used in computing (for which the common contextual abbreviation is hex, not to be confused with the prefix hex meaning 6.)

This page claims the Chinese Abacus counts in base 10:

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Got any supporting details? If you mean the hexagrams of the I Ching, that appears to be related to the number 6 - as in pairs of trigrams - and is not apparently related to 16 (hexadecimal).

Reply to
toby

it is wrong.

please refer

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Hexadecimal system

Traditional Chinese weighing units was a hexadecimal system. One jin (=E6=96=A4) equals sixteen liang (=E5=85=A9). Abaci were commonly used in m= arket place to calculate with these hexadecimal units. When all the beads in the Chinese abacus are used, each column can be used to represent numbers between 0 to 15 (two 5s and five 1s.) Computation in decimal and hexadecimal is very similar except one extra bead from both the upper and lower deck are used.

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toby wrote:

ex

Reply to
dick

market

Thanks for the explanation. Were there any other units in the system?

ers

hex

Reply to
toby

No the pi one is true, but only for very small values of pi ;-)

Reply to
Tom Lucas

This is an interesting discussion, especially the Chinese usage. I have taken the trouble to edit out the confusing top-posting, in order to make it coherent.

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Reply to
CBFalconer

Explains a lot, really. AFAIK That innumeracy has made it into school curricula, thanks to the lunatic Christian fringe.

Reply to
toby

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