Binary Coded Decimal (BCD) & Douglas Adams' 42 - Computerphile

Comments · 278

• PR

  @profdaveb6384 · 8 years ago

  Yes, I just wanted to show that "Computerphile" presenters other than Dr Bagley are also allowed to wear Hawaiian shirts! This particular one was bought about 8 years ago at Macy's, in Stanford University's Shopping Mall.

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• TH

  @TheTwick · 8 years ago

  Professor Brailsford, NEVER STOP telling us stories about computers and computing. I could listen all day.

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• ZX

  @ZX48K · 8 years ago

  The ASCII equivalent of 42 is asterisk.  The asterisk is used in computing to represent 'anything'. So the answer to life, the universe and everything is anything ;)

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• VY

  @vylbird8014 · 8 years ago

  The exact wording is important. The Deep Thought was specifically asked &quot;What is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything?&quot;<br><br>The answer it eventually gave was 42. It was not, however, able to compute the ultimate question itsself, to which 42 was the answer.

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• EZ

  @ezwa29 · 8 years ago

  42 in binary is (mentioned in the video) 101010. When Parliament of the Czech Republic (where I am from) agreed a law on digital broadcasting or digital phoning or whatever digital (I can&apos;t remember), they made it valid since 10. October 2010, or 10.10.10. They I believe proved their sense of humor...

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• SL

  @Slithy · 8 years ago

  &quot;Heavyweight macho calculations&quot;. I love it.

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• B0

  @b0bjedump · 8 years ago

  Why weren&apos;t my teachers more like this guy?! Hats off to the knowledge and experience.

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• IT

  @itsgranite · 8 years ago

  The double dabble algorithm is a pretty great way to convert beateeen binary and BDF. It&apos;s how you can output to an lcd screen at the end of an arythmatic unit.

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• RM

  @RMoribayashi · 8 years ago

  HP scientific calculators all used BCD so avoided the rounding problems inherent in a true binary calculator. In 2004 Thomas Okken&apos;s released his exellent HP-42 simulator, Free42. It comes in both BCD and the slightly faster floating point binary versions. SwissMicros brought it full circle in 2017 when they released the DM-42, a physical calculator based on the HP-42 but using a modified version of Free42 for it&apos;s firmware. And yes... it uses BCD.

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• ZA

  @Zadster · 8 years ago

  Top choice of shirt Prof. B!<br>Every time I see one of these videos, I get nostalgic for when I was an undergrad, and a wee bit jealous of all those people about to go to university to learn all sorts of amazing new things. Good times!

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• PH

  @philrod1 · 8 years ago

  8-bit arcade machines use BCD for displaying scores, etc. on the screen. &nbsp;The Z80 CPU has the DAA instruction for <i>fixing</i> BCD values after ADD, SUB, etc.

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• NI

  @nikolaradakovic5050 · 4 years ago

  You Sir Dave bring internet to a very different level of usefulness . Thank you for such a high quality yet free content.

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