As a result of Valery's clock problem, I have unwittlingly found myself exploring elementary number theory. This has entailed a rewrite of several of my standard library functions to work more effectively with different bases. It has also meant modifying the behaviour of some of Mathcad's built-in numeric functions, such as Mod, Round, Trunc, Ceil and Floor, to handle complex numbers.
Currently, Mathcad (not sure about Prime) allows one to enter numbers in decimal (default), binary, octal and hexadecimal, and to display them in this format through the Format Results dialog. This is a bit of a pain if one is working in mixed bases (which is usually the case) and it would be a lot easier if one could simply enter the (arbitrary) base as part of the number entry or display.
One possibility is to write pseudo-unit functions, as in the example below:
However, an alternative, and one that is in keeping with the majority of texts that I've looked at, is to put the base (expressed in base 10) as a subscript, eg:
This would both provide a more elegant solution but also provide an entry point into single, generic conversion routine.
I suppose one could even have more exotic bases ...
Stuart
