2002-11-19 This person is looking for a "way in" to make SI look bad. If one can find one point where SI causes errors or "harm" then SI is not superior to FFU.
This person's thinking is that SI deals with decimal numbers and FFU is "binary". The same crap put out by the BWMA. The reality is that FFU is as much a part of the decimal numbering system as SI is. But SI is more coherent and organised within the decimal numbering system. Some people like to advertise FFU as being binary only because some its conversion factors are related by powers of two. Conversion factors do not make a system binary. A system is binary when it is uses ones and zeros as its only digits. Any system, even metric can be expressed in binary. 5 g in binary is 101 g. Hexadecimal is a multiple of binary. It is simply binary numbers grouped into 4 units. A hexadecimal number can be represented in binary easily, whereas a decimal, or even a duodecimal number can not. C7B9 become 1100 0111 1011 1001. The computer still "thinks" and works in binary. Hexadecimal is really used for our sake by reducing, as in the example above, 16 digits down to 4. Any base that is a multiple of two will work, not just hexadecimal. The other thing that has to be considered is that we in the "real world" do not think in binary. We think in decimal. And our machines must be able to input decimal and output it if they are going to be a use to us. A digital scale may compute the mass of an object placed upon it in binary, but for it to be useful to anyone of us, it must be "converted" to a decimal form. It would be foolish to try and force a computer to compute in anything but binary, but to say hex and decimal don't mix is equally foolish. That computer at some moment will have to convert whatever it computed into decimal if it is to be understood by the users. Comments like these below real show to what extent ignorant people will go to preserve a dying institution. John ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, 2002-11-19 13:51 Subject: [USMA:23500] (fwd) Re: Can the metric system work? I've had the following enquiry, and would appreciate comments from anyone more knowledgable in this sphere than myself! (In the meantime, I'll try to understand his problem better.) Chris >We have experienced a great deal of system crashes and a high degree of >inaccuracies associated with all CNC software. We decided to involve >Topology and Automata experts to assist us in overcoming the problems. The >outcome was that the software data sets during the conversion from Hex to >Deci (ADI system) were the prime cause in that rounding off became >impossible for math coprocessors to handle at 1st level maths. For accurate >CNC operations we would require 4th level maths. It was later brought to our >attention that Microsoft was aware of this problem during the 1992 Alpha >Tests at which time it became abundantly clear that the problem could not be >rectified, furthermore the problem worsened as the time element entered the >equations, and as the frequency of 12 and 24 increased. Microsoft knew at >that time the metric system of measurement had to go and that Hex and Deci >will never mix. We are convince that engineering data exchange under ISO >10303 will be problematic and will emanate from the extensive use of real >numbers that are associated with the metric system of measurement. >Kindest regards, > >C H. Ryton. > >----- Original Message ----- >From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: "Carlisle H. Ryton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Sent: Sunday, November 17, 2002 10:13 PM >Subject: Re: Can the metric system work? > > >On Sun, 17 Nov 2002 15:28:37 -0000, you wrote: > >>Can you tell us how the metric system works with a 64 bit integer math and >binary algorithms setup? >> >>Regards, >> >>C H. Ryton. -- UK Metric Association: http://www.metric.org.uk/
