2014-04-26 10:52:28 -04:00
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hexadecimal
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2014-04-26 11:54:15 -04:00
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n. Base 16. Coined in the early 1950s to replace earlier sexadecimal , which
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was too racy and amusing for stuffy IBM, and later adopted by the rest of
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the industry. Actually, neither term is etymologically pure. If we take
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binary to be paradigmatic, the most etymologically correct term for base 10,
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for example, is denary , which comes from deni (ten at a time, ten each), a
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Latin distributive number; the corresponding term for base-16 would be
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something like sendenary. Decimal comes from the combining root of decem ,
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Latin for 10. If wish to create a truly analogous word for base 16, we
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should start with sedecim , Latin for 16. Ergo, sedecimal is the word that
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would have been created by a Latin scholar. The sexa- prefix is Latin but
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incorrect in this context, and hexa- is Greek. The word octal is similarly
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incorrect; a correct form would be octaval (to go with decimal), or octonary
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(to go with binary). If anyone ever implements a base-3 computer, computer
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scientists will be faced with the unprecedented dilemma of a choice between
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two correct forms; both ternary and trinary have a claim to this throne.
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