So this is part two of our analysis, archeological dig into things we take for granted. I recommend you view this set of videos in order as they do build on each other. However, they can be viewed independently. Now, did you ever wonder why we have a base 10 numbering system? Do you think it might have something to do with the fact that we have 10 digits sticking out from the end of our hands? I guess a three toed sloth uses a base six numbering system.

Maybe I haven't asked for the earliest known base 10 system dates to 3100 bc in Egypt, where they used hieroglyphs for numerals. We know our numbers zero through nine as Arabic numerals, but actually they developed in India, Arabic numerals use a modified version of the Hindu numeral system, which emerged in 1200 BC. Now it's easy nowadays to find some of this stuff out thanks to Wikipedia in my computer, Systems career I had to learn other number based systems for example binary. The base two system with values of zero or more binary is used by almost all computers octal a base eight system with values zero through seven. I worked on a second generation octal computer in my first job and hexadecimal base 16 system with values of zero through nine and then A through F for symbols that represented 10 through 15. had tried to teach my sister hexadecimal, she laughed and walked away when I said you could add B to D. Have you ever realized how many times the number 12 is used as a group?

I read a fascinating article once that said the real numeral system of the world is the base 12 look at how many times it shows up 12 months in the year 12 times table 12 inches in one foot 12 people on a jury 12 signs of the zodiac 12 hours on a typical clock. etc. We even have a separate word for 12 doesn't, we don't have another common word or 10 or 11. You're probably familiar with Roman numerals, which is a numeral system that uses letters, IV, x LCD, and M, equivalent to one 510 5100 500 and 1000. We still see these marking the hours on some clock faces today, my wife and I always like to see who is the quickest at getting the data released at the end of the credits of an old movie, where the data is in Roman numerals 2008 release.

So we use a numeral system that's thousands of years old, our base 10 system being about 5000 years old. Nothing wrong with that unless we start growing extra fingers. If we continue archeological dig, in the same vein, you could ask why do we have a 26 letter alphabet? Actually the Old English Latin alphabet, the news from the ninth The centuries generally consisted of 24 lessons. The lesson is you and Jay were added in the 16th century. That's where I received the instead of you called in inscriptions on all Roman buildings.

Now the old sculptors weren't really bad at spelling. Of course, there are many other alphabets. The Hawaiian alphabet uses only 30 letters, five normal vowels, consonants, and other things I'm still trying to figure out. Then there's the Japanese phonetic alphabet and the Chinese non alphabetic script. One of my books was translated into Japanese. I think the cover says nothing in this book is true, but I can't be sure because I can't read it.

Of course, you could say that English letters and numbers are just graphic symbols anyway, which we associate with a sound or concept. These funny symbols called letters get strung together to form other funny things called words, which gets strung together to form sentences etc. to give us a means of community As with most communication methods, our language is in an ongoing state of change. Think of the growing use worldwide of the outside now on the internet meaning located, as opposed to the original accounting meaning of at the rate of. It's one of the few special characters that has a place on computer keyboards. So our 26th letter alphabet is at least 700 years old.

It's a historical conglomeration of redundant sounding letters, such as K and C, and sometimes inconsistent sounding letters such as soft g versus Haji, and it's due for a cleanup, but I'm not holding my breath. By the way, now we even have spell checking computer software, so we can perpetuate silly misspelled words over from here on we clean up one letter each year, but that's me going into a new design mode. However, as an author of many books and seeing the proliferation of texting abbreviations would like to start a campaign for repression of acronym perforation. Still, the lesson is be careful what you perpetuate. On the subject of letters I came across an old typewriter on my archeological dig. Actually I found the typewriter in a garage sale.

In England they call them car boot sales. That means an automobile trunk sale. Notice I'm bilingual now. The old manual typewriter used a semicircular set of strikers, each striker having a character on it that would hit the paper at a central spot. The strikers were arranged so that the most commonly used letters were not next to each other, so the strikers would not catch each other in jam when typing too fast. The layout of the keys were designed to deliberately slow down the typist, hence the strangest and least efficient data entry layout was designed, called the QWERTY layout.

The name Qwerty comes from the first six letters on the top row of letters on the keyboard layout today The QWERTY keyboard is everywhere. Look on the devices use. Even the latest mobile devices have this layout. And you guessed it, this strange keyboard layout is the same layout as the old typewriter. Let me ask a rhetorical question. The two characters appear on top of each other on the screen when you type real fast, I don't think so.

The problem of gem strikers has gone away, but we still have this slow you down layout. I guess the early computing device manufacturers assumed we were all typists, Bibles, and I've written many books and still hunt and peck for the letters when I type. So the worst keyboard design is now on the latest technology devices. Here's a little history on the typewriter layout from Wikipedia. If you wondered why the keyboard is not laid out in alphabetical order, as in ABCD, etc. Well, actually that was the original design.

The story goes that Christopher Latham Scholz in 1867. did propose that design. He joined the Remington Arms Company. And they did some trials and found the problem that the keys jamming on the typewriter. So in 1876 the QWERTY layout was patented. Notice on the early typewriters, there was no number zero or one. The typist could use the letter O and I instead to say production costs of the typewriter.

Now, have you heard of the Dvorak layout? In 1930, Auguste devorah invented a new keyboard. In his keyboard, the most use keys were on the middle row, allowing for faster typing speed without jamming the keys. In studies devorah found moving our fingers to different rows took valuable data entry time. So notice the vowels a IOU around the middle row on the divorce act layout. This reminds me of my early computer hardware days, where the seek time for data on a magnetic disk was fast if all the data in a search was on the same track.

Took longer after this rewrite head arms had to move across the storage plates to retrieve a certain data. Unfortunately, they already established typewriter layout design one out, and hence we still have the QWERTY keyboard today, the best design doesn't always win out. Of course the QWERTY keyboard slows down all data entry, and cumulatively is a significant problem. However, this keyboard layout problem goes away when we don't type things in. Even today, the use of icons graphics pointing click and even copy and paste is reducing the amount of typing necessary. And as a requirement for data entry.

This design will go away when voice recognition takes over. Or we can do a Star Trek spot mind meld data entry, but I'm not holding my breath on that one. So historical, or maybe we should say in this case historical designs get perpetuated a lesson is be careful what you perpetuate Follow me on to my next video in this series, part three. To continue archeological dig. We'll look at the evolution of books, ebooks and data entry methods that have been perpetuated in the latest technology. Or you can find out more about what I teach professionally by going to my website at www logical conclusions inc.com