Megalextoria
Retro computing and gaming, sci-fi books, tv and movies and other geeky stuff.

Home » Digital Archaeology » Computer Arcana » Computer Folklore » Re: Windows 11 is now available
Show: Today's Messages :: Show Polls :: Message Navigator
E-mail to friend 
Return to the default flat view Create a new topic Submit Reply
Re: Windows 11 is now available [message #411782 is a reply to message #411781] Fri, 08 October 2021 15:55 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
Harry Vaderchi is currently offline  Harry Vaderchi
Messages: 719
Registered: July 2012
Karma:
Senior Member
On Fri, 8 Oct 2021 19:40:09 +0100
Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> wrote:

> On 08/10/2021 13:13, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
>> I was starting high and was hoping to progress via mechanical
>> calculators/sliderules to end with "my grandad just counted
>> pebbles". VI*VII=XLII
>
> Not quite sure what that last line was intended to convey,
> but if it was that Roman numerals are not sensible in use for
> arithmetic, then, within reason, I beg to differ. Within the

OK, I shudda given an example with div. (DIV =500+5-1!)


> domain of small[-ish] integers, they are, if anything, rather
> better than Arabic numerals [else you can be sure that Romans,
> always very practical, wouldn't have used them]. They have a
> smaller and more regular multiplication table, simpler rules
> [eg in respect of "carries" and "borrows"], and addition and
> subtraction are largely mere concatenation together with some
> obvious re-write rules. It's a different matter when you're
> doing physics or even engineering to many decimal places or
> with numbers much over MMM, but neither the Romans nor the
> man on the Clapham Omnibus were much into such things.
>


--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.
[Message index]
 
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Previous Topic: Re: Sub or dom ; does it really matter?
Next Topic: Top or bottom posting; does it really matter?
Goto Forum:
  

-=] Back to Top [=-
[ Syndicate this forum (XML) ] [ RSS ] [ PDF ]

Current Time: Fri Mar 29 03:55:48 EDT 2024

Total time taken to generate the page: 1.07810 seconds