On Sun, 27 Mar 2005 10:16:45 -0500, Muke Tever <muke@...> wrote:
> Nicholas Bodley <nbodley@...> wrote:
>> Btw, although "hexadecimal" is the commonplace spelling, nevertheless,
>> I once read, not long after IBM publicized it, that the "a" is not
>> linguistically correct.
> It's not the "a" - many Greek words are spelled with "hexa-", e.g.
> "hexadactylos" (having six fingers), "hexabiblos" (in six books), etc.
> The linguistically unusual part is that it grafts the Greek 6 onto the
> Latin 10. The Latin 6, "sex" would be expected, thus "sedecimal" =
> 16-al.
Golly. Such a nice concise form, too. Mixed Latin+Greek forms used to be
rather disparaged, I gather, back when more people knew those languages.
I'll use your explanation from here on, out.
Trying online translation, I see "δεκαέξι" for "sixteen" (dekahexi?).
Long ago, I remember seeing base-16 digits beyond 9 as u, v, w, x, y, and
z.
All real programmers have three extra fingers on each hand. I do wish
some Halloween costume makers would make some gloves for the bit-bashers.
Ought to have a modest market...
In 1960, the computer I worked on had a paper-tape code in base 32. Is
"Duotricenary" correct?
Thanks!
--
Nicholas Bodley /*|*\ Waltham, Mass.
The curious hermit -- autodidact and polymath