[Coco] CoCo 3 MMU test for all

[jdaggett at gate.net]

On 20 Jan 2008 at 23:13, Roger Taylor wrote:


> >The darndest thing that the Coco manuals ever did was to do

> >everything in decimal.

> 

> There was a reason for that.  Before learning to program you first

> think of numbers only in base 10, the human way of thinking.  And I

> don't go in a store and hand them a $19 cent piece (a quarter).  It's

> 25 cents if I reference it as #25 in my source code.  Addresses,

> sure... use Hex.  Doing bitshifting... use binary so you can better

> visualize what's going to happen after a rotate or logical shift.  If

> you shift $F to the right and get $7, you have to think about that the

> same as with shifting #15 into #7.


Yes it is easier for a person to think decimal as we are taught decimal from 
the earliest stages of our education. Our world is decimal in how we deal 
with money and other items. When I spent a week in Ireland it took me only 
about a day to become familiar with their currency. It to was based on a 
decimal system but used different denominations. In their decimal money 
system there was a two cent piece and no 25 cent piece. 

Decimal in the Tandy manuals was far easier to explain comuter operation 
to those w ho knew little or nothing than to try and do a manual that was 
entirely in  hex. 

james