[Leica] Still more metric

[shino at panix.com (Rei Shinozuka)]

  aren't nixies for display?

when i was in high school, my dad was a Columbia professor and he had 
some kind of array processor racked up with his HP1000 minicomputer.  
That array processor had nixies and it was a beauty!

Anyone who is too young to know what a nixie tube is, here's an product 
highlighting these gems:

http://www.amazon.com/Nixie-Clock-Factory-Assembled-Tested/dp/B001M1GJPG

-rei


On 08/10/2010 12:06 PM, Lawrence Zeitlin wrote:
> Henning writes:
>
> "Using the metric system because we have ten
>
> fingers are related, but not the reason. Our
>
> common numbering system is base 10, and that is
>
> why metric makes sense. Our numbering system is
>
> base 10 because we have 10 fingers. Therein lies
>
> the logic."
>
>
> Logical, perhaps, but not practical. Many other systems of measurement in
> common use use bases other than 10. Computer science uses the binary system
> (base 2) since a switch, relay, or transistor is either open or closed.
> Close behind is the octal system (base 8) for measurement of text in bytes
> and the hexadecimal system (base 16). Merchants use the duodecimal system
> (base 12) since a dozen of anything can be divided by factors 1, 2, 3, 4,
> and 6, making it easy to sell things by the fractional dozen. Thirty five 
> mm
> film is sold in commercial lengths of 12, 24, and 36 exposures. Even 
> Lincoln
> calculated historical time by the score (base 20) in the Gettysburg Address
> phrase "Four score and seven years ago." And, of course, we recently
> celebrated the millennium (base 1000).
>
>
> On a personal note, the first computer that I personally programmed was the
> Burroughs 101, a base 10 machine that used 10 step Nixie tubes as a
> calculating element. The machine existed during the heyday of 10 digit IBM
> cards. While it made interpretation of the results easy for a ten fingered
> operator, the machine was soon eclipsed by much faster binary machines. So
> it goes.
>
>
> Larry Z
>
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