In a message dated 97-10-09 09:13:27 EDT, you write:

> The worst
>  part is the handycap most of us suffer from ... 10 fingers. If we had 16
>  fingers, HEX would be a lot easier. But with your HP in HEX mode, you'll
>  have no problems.
>
The reason we're stuck with the decimal system is that many centurys ago our
ancestors mistakenly thought that God had given us ten fingers as an
indication that we should use base 10. In actuality God really intended for
us to think of each hand as one nibble of an 8 bit byte with the four fingers
representing the bits and the thumb as a carry bit.

Bob