Re: Base 2 and HEX

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Re: Base 2 and HEX

        I am afraid some more specificity is going to be needed in order to
address the question raised. First, the question of what specific calculators
are going to be used is going to have to be cleared up -- just saying "on most
calculators" isn't good enough. The _class_ of calculators exemplified by the
TI-83 is designed to perform primarily numeric calculation, with little
control by the user of the output displayed. The class of calculators
exemplified by the TI-86 (probably some of the HP calculators too) is designed
to perform more technical calculations, and generally includes a mode for
performing simple computations directly in hex, or octal or binary. The class
of calculators exemplified by the TI-89 and TI-92 (and yes, calculators made by
some of TI's competitors) is designed to perform general computation, including
symbolic manipulation, and affords the user almost complete control over the
output. In which of these environments does your interest lie?

        Second, what sort of computations are to be performed? Arithmetic in
hex and binary is often confined to _integer_ arithmetic: addition and
multiplication of integers, and divison with remainder. Getting into the
question of fractional representation, approximations and round-off, and
all those good things is a fascinating but little-explored topic. Perhaps
the only wish is to display the _results_ of a computation in binary or
hex representation. This would be fairly easy with the 89/92, by creating
a little "pipeline" function to display the results as a string or an array.
But if the wish is to work with _approximate_ numbers (the analogue of
"decimals") then some careful thought is going to be needed with regard to
considerations of precision (and communication of same). Perhaps this would
turn out to be more of a headache than it is worth...

RWW Taylor
National Technical Institute for the Deaf
Rochester Institute of Technology
Rochester NY 14623

>>>> The plural of mongoose begins with p. <<<<

=====================================================================

Jim Trek wrote:
>
> Hello Everybody,
>
> This is my first message to the discussion list.
>
> I am interested the option of getting binary (base 2) answers to
> scientific calculations and hexadecimal answers as well.  I suppose
> the constant log base 10 of 2 could be stored to use as a divisor
> for logs (for example), but on most calculators that still gets a
> base ten answer on the display.  Base 2 is a little more important
> to me than hex.  Do either of these problems have a convenient
> solution?
>
> Thank you for your help.
>
> Jim Trek
> Future Beacon Technology
> http://eznet.net/~progress
> progress@eznet.net

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