> I need to measure and count in feet and inches and display it on a LCD.
>
> I always worked in metric before where I normally use a register
> each for fractions, ones, tens, hundreds, etc.  This is easy to
> display and manipulate.

Yep.  No argument from me.  I like metric.

> Now I have to do the same for feet and inches. I know there is
> 12 inches in a foot, so that one is not a problem. But what is
> the general way of displaying fractions of an inch?. Do you just
> use decimal? I.E.: 1/2 inch do you show it as 0.5 inch?

Depends on the trade and the accuracy and scale that a particular
person is normally used to cutting/fitting.

For example, carpenter or plumber would probably use fractions
down to 1/8" or 1/16" granularity; maybe 1/32" for fine work.

A machinist would lean toward decimals, frequently expressed
as 3 digits to the right of the radix point, so that it were
in thousandths of an inch, 0.500".

Surveyors use decimal feet, where 1/2" would be 0.04' (makes
more sense when the feet portion is present).

> Also feet is indicated by a ' symbol and inch by " symbol. Right?

Yes.  ft and in are also used, e.g. 5 ft 10-1/2 in.

> How would you show it on and LCD screen?
> Say 5 feet, 10 1/2 inches. Would you do this: 5' 10.5" ?

5' 10 1/2"  or  5' 10-1/2"  or  5' 10.5"  or  5' 10.500"

or  70.5"  or  5'-10.5"  or  5'-10 1/2".

Largest format issue is whether your customer wants the display
in fractions or decimal or selectable between either.

> I can't see in my minds eye that that will look good on a LCD.
> But maybe it is because I am not used to looking at it that way.

It doesn't look good; it's clumsy.  But that's the way people are
used to seeing it displayed.

                                                Lee Jones

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