[OT] Yorkshire programmers, was RE: More Cheap-o Squeak-o har dware

Withers, Robert rwithers at quallaby.com
Wed Feb 13 19:42:04 UTC 2002


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Duane Maxwell [mailto:dmaxwell at san.rr.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2002 2:22 PM
> To: squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org
> Subject: Re: [OT] Yorkshire programmers, was RE: More Cheap-o Squeak-o
> hardware
> 
> 
> > Our managers expected us to connect the vacuum tubes by 
> hand; 300 volts,
> and
> > we'd be droppin' like flies durin' even the simplest bubble 
> sort . . .
> 
> Vacuum tubes? That's Utopia!
> 
> In my day, we'd count hings using our fingers.  If we needed 
> numbers larger
> than 10, we'd take our shoes off.  When we got to 21, well.....

Only to 20(21)?  I'm a little younger than you, so they had managed a base 2
counting system.  Yes that's 1023 on ten fingers or 2097151 on 21.  Of
course, with good finger dexterity, some could establish a base-5 system on
their hands (9765624), but I could only manage a base-3 system (59049).
Then you start taking the log of numbers...



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