From: bencollver@tilde.pink   
      
   On Binary Digits And Human Habits by Frederik Pohl   
   ==================================================   
   When an astronomer wants to know where the planet Neptune is going to   
   be on July 4th, 2753 A.D., he can if he wishes spend the rest of his   
   life working out sums on paper with pencil. Given good health and   
   fast reflexes, he may live long enough to come up with the answer.   
   But he is more likely to employ the services of an electronic   
   computer, which--once properly programmed and set in motion--will   
   click out the answer in a matter of hours. Meanwhile the astronomer   
   can catch up on his gin rummy or, alternatively, start thinking about   
   the next problem he wants to set the computer. It isn't only   
   astronomers, of course, who let the electrons do their arithmetic.   
   More and more, in industry, financial institutions, organs of   
   government and nearly every area of life, computers are regularly   
   used to supply quick answers to hard questions.   
      
   A big problem in facilitating this use, and one which costs   
   computer-users many millions of dollars each year, is that computers   
   are mostly adapted to a diet of binary numbers. The familiar decimal   
   digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 which we use every day upset   
   their digestions. They prefer simple binary digits, 0 and 1, no more.   
   With them the computers can represent any finite quantity quite as   
   unambiguously as we can with five times as many digits in the decimal   
   scheme; what's more, they can "write" their two digits electronically   
   by following such simple rules as, "A current flowing through here   
   means 1, no current flowing through here means 0."   
      
   In practice, many computers are now equipped with automatic   
   translators which, before anything else happens, convert the decimal   
   information they are fed into the binary arithmetic they can digest.   
   A few, even--clumsy brutes they are!--actually work directly with   
   decimal numbers.   
      
   But intrinsically binary arithmetic has substantial advantages over   
   decimal... once it is mastered! It is only because it has not been   
   entirely easy to master it that we have been required to take the   
   additional, otherwise unnecessary step of conversion.   
      
   The principal difficulty in binary arithmetic is in the appearance of   
   the binary numbers themselves. They are homely, awkward and strange.   
   They look like a string of stutters by an electric typewriter with a   
   slipping key; and they pronounce only with difficulty. For example,   
   the figure 11110101000 defies quick recognition by most humans,   
   although most digital computers know it to be the sum of 2^10 plus   
   2^9 plus 2^8 plus 2^7 plus 2^5 plus 2^3--i.e., in decimal notation,   
   1960.   
      
   To cope with this problem some workers have devised their own   
   conventions of writing and pronouncing such numbers. A system in use   
   at the Bell Telephone Laboratories would set off the above figure in   
   groups of three digits:   
      
       11,110,101,000   
      
   and would then pronounce each group of three (or less) separately as   
   its decimal equivalent. The first binary group, 11, is the equivalent   
   of the decimal 3; the second, 110, of the decimal 6; the third, 101,   
   of the decimal 5. (000 is zero in any notation.) The above would then   
   be read, "Three, six, five, zero."   
      
   Another suggestion, made by the writer, is to set off binary digits   
   in groups of five and pronounce them according to the "dits" and   
   "dahs" of Morse code, "dit" standing for 1 and "dah" for zero. Thus   
   the date 1960 would be written:   
      
       1,11101,01000   
      
   and pronounced, "Dit, didididahdit, dahdidahdahdah."   
      
   Obviously both of these proposals offer some advantages over the   
   employment of no special system at all, i.e., writing the number as   
   one unit and pronouncing it, "One one one one oh one oh one oh oh   
   oh." Yet it seems, if only on heuristic principles, that conventions   
   devised especially for binary notation might offer attractions. Such   
   a convention would probably prove somewhat more difficult to learn   
   than those, like the above, which employ features derived from other   
   vocabularies. It might be so devised, however, that it could provide   
   economy and a lessening of ambiguity.   
      
   One such convention has already been proposed by Joshua Stern of the   
   National Bureau of Standards, who would set off binary numbers in   
   groups of four--   
      
       111,1010,1000   
      
   and gives names to selected quantities, so that binary 10 would   
   become "ap", 100 "bru", 1000 "cid", 1,0000 "dag" and, finally,   
   1,0000,0000 "hi". The only other names used in this system would be   
   "one" for 1 and "zero" for 0, as in decimal notation. In this way the   
   binary equivalent of 1960 would be read as, "bruaponehi, cidapdag,   
   cid."   
      
   It will be seen that the Stern proposal has a built-in mnemonic aid,   
   in that the new names are arranged alphabetically. "Ap" contains one   
   zero, "bru" two zeroes, "cid" three zeroes and so on.   
      
   Such a proposal provides prospects of additions and refinements which   
   could well approach those features of convenience some thousands of   
   years of working with decimal notation have given us. Yet it may   
   nevertheless be profitable to explore some of the other ways in which   
   a suitable naming system can be constructed.   
      
   As a starting point, let us elect to write our binary numbers in   
   double groups of three, set off by a comma after (more accurately,   
   before) each pair of groups. Our binary representation of the decimal   
   year 1960 then becomes:   
      
       11,110,101,000   
      
   and we may proceed to a consideration of how to pronounce it. Taking   
   one semi-group of three digits as the unit "root" of the number-word,   
   we find that there are eight possible "roots" to be pronounced:   
      
       Binary   
       ------   
       000   
       001   
       010   
       011   
       100   
       101   
       110   
       111   
      
   The full double group of six digits represents 8x8 or 64 possible   
   cases. By assigning a pronunciation to each of the eight roots, and   
   by affixing what other sounds may prove necessary as aids in   
   pronunciation, we should then be able to construct a sixty-four word   
   vocabulary with which we can pronounce any finite binary number.   
      
   The problem of pronunciation does not, of course, limit itself to the   
   case of one worker reading results aloud to another. It has been   
   suggested that we all, in some degree, subvocalize as we read. To see   
   the word "cat" is to hear the sound of the word "cat" in the mind,   
   and when the mind is not able instantly to produce an appropriate   
   sound reading falters. (This point is one which probably needs no   
   belaboring for any person who has ever attempted to learn a foreign   
   language out of books.) Reading is, indeed, accompanied often by a   
   faint mutter of the larynx which can be detected and amplified to   
   recognizable speech.   
      
   Our first suggestion for pronunciation is that there is no need to   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)