Thread: FREE/BARGAIN — Science Fiction & Fantasy
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Old 01-18-2018, 11:58 AM   #1328
Rev. Bob
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DNSB View Post
I seem to remember thinking that looking up decimal to binary in a book and entering the binary numbers into the computer then converting the computer's light display back to decimal was a bit silly. But then in 1952-3 when the book was written, it would be quite possible the computer would not have had enough memory to store the lookup tables. Grasping at straws here...
Maybe it's my background, but it's the idea of looking up the conversions in a book that strikes me as silly. I do most one-byte conversions in my head, two-byte values might take me a little longer, and if I can't do that for some reason (large values, or maybe not enough sleep), a pencil and a scrap of paper do just dandy.

I mean, seriously - take 10101001. Split it into four-digit pieces to make things easy: 1010 and 1001. Anyone who knows what binary is should be able to read those as "ten" and "nine." Getting that to decimal is simple: "ten times sixteen plus nine" equals 169. Going to hex is even easier: ten is A, nine is 9, write 'em next to each other, that's A9. (There's a reason we use four-bit chunks!) Works almost as easily in reverse.

Or, for a more timely comparison that RAH should have been able to figure out, if a WWII ship's radio operator can transcribe Morse code by ear because that's his job, his Space Patrol counterpart who works with binary-decimal-hex all day long will be just at good at translating that in his head. Even better, probably; Morse code relies on remembering a table, whereas this is grade-school multiplication.
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