Dear Stan, I think that you will be interested in the description of old calculating machines that can be found at: http://www.xnumber.com/xnumber/non-decimal.htm
This suggests that the first 'computer' was a base-10 machine called the 'Pascaline' that was made, as a commercial venture, by Blaise Pascal in 1644. Also of interest in this article is the development of binary arithmetic , by Gottfried Leibniz, in 1679 and the development of his 'Digital Adder'. The article says: 'This device has an astonishing similarity to the binary adder of modern digital IC in our computers!' Cheers, Pat Naughtin PO Box 305 Belmont 3216 Geelong, Australia 61 3 5241 2008 Pat Naughtin is manager of http://www.metricationmatters.com an internet website that focuses on the many issues, methods and processes that individuals, groups, companies, and nations use when upgrading to the metric system. Contact Pat Naughtin at [EMAIL PROTECTED] On 2007 06 20 1:30 AM, "STANLEY DOORE" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The base 10 number system was devised because humans have 10 fingers and 10 > toes. > > Early computers were designed to work on the base 2 (binary) number system > which is more efficient and it's used primarily by the scientific community. > Later, non-scientific computers have been built on base 10 to accommodate most > of people's activities. > > Regards, Stan Doore > > > >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> >> From: Mike Millet <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> >> To: U.S. Metric Association <mailto:[email protected]> >> >> Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2007 10:55 AM >> >> Subject: [USMA:38925] Discussion on the metric system >> >> >> All, >> >> I was browsing Digg today and happened to notice that there was an article >> about nations who had not yet adopted the metric system. >> >> Digg is more of a social news site where people can comment on the posts, >> and I thought it might be interesting for the list to read some of the >> comments. >> >> http://digg.com/general_sciences/Nations_who_have_not_yet_adopted_the_metric_ >> system_pic#c7261085 >> >> Mike
