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I could tell I was on a geeks website when my attempted single visit user name of sixty nine written in binary was a banned name. Other binary combos worked. The incident was around 1997. I was an on line game site.
Well, even in octal (base 8) 10 * 10 is still 100.
Whatever the convention is with other base systems would apply to binary. So what would you call 10 in octal? Eight? Then what would you call 100 in base 8? Eighty? If you go the conversion rout then you’re really not speaking in that base’s language.
I can’t believe this is up to 43 (base ten) posts.
[Tom Lehrer]Base eight, it’s just like base ten -
if you’re missing two fingers[/Tom Lehrer]
I tell the joke out loud and use “ten” for “10”. It still works among those who were going to get it, and “one-zero” still wouldn’t work for those who wouldn’t get it.
It was a hit with the homeschooled boys at my goddaughter’s 15th (decimal) birthday party, by the way. I was suddenly the cool grown-up in the crowd.
I deal with hex, binary, and octal quite a bit in my job. I say 10 binary as “one zero” (I am maybe more likely to say “zero zero one zero”) but for some reason I say 10 hexidecimal as “ten hex” and 10 octal as “ten octal”.
Yes, if you’re reading the joke out loud, you pretty much have to say “ten.”
After that, there’s not a lot of convention; people don’t speak numbers in odd bases nearly as much as they write them. Computer people are used to just converting numbers to base 10 when communicating with non-computer people, so the issue doesn’t come up except in geek-geek communications.
There, people seem to come up with their own conventions, and there is, in fact, occasional confusion: some people would say “ten binary,” and if there wasn’t something they were pointing at, there might be two interpretations.
My own is to say the base first, then read off the digits: “hex D-E-A-D-B-E-E-F-0-2”, “binary 1-0-0-1”, “octal 3-5-6-7” or something like that. It’s non-confusing, but somewhat verbose, and others choose the small possibility of confusion (remember, you’re usually looking at something written, too) in favor of brevity.
I disagree that you can’t say “hundred” to represent both 100[sub]d[/sub] or 64[sub]16[/sub] or 144[sub]8[/sub] or 1100100[sub]2[/sub].
For that matter I think “ten” is fine for 10[sub]10[/sub] or 1010[sub]2[/sub].
When I taught binary & number systems as part of my computer classes, I told students that they’d have to learn to separate the idea of “quantity” from “number”. Numbers can be used as a way to write quantities but quantity is independent of the number system used. Most students were non-technical backgrounds and had never really considered this distinction.
A full package of eggs has twelve eggs in it whether you write it as “12” or “1100”. That quantity is the same. Same for a box of a hundred golf balls or whatever. I see no trouble in using the same set of words to express quantity and different sets of digits to represent that quantity.
Therefore, “Hundred” == 100 = 1100100[sub]2[/sub].
So that’s how you express a pair of steaks in hex.
[sub]F00D[/sub].
First of all, the joke only works if it’s written. It kind of dies when spoken, since it depends on the ambiguity of the meaning of 10, which gets collapsed when you say it.
As for how to pronounce it, after decades of doing just this it depends on the context. If you are busy reading binary or octal or hex, you save “ten” and the base is assumed. If you are talking about converting numbers, you say ten base 2 or two base ten (or ten in hex is sixteen base ten.) Ditto a hundred. I only read off the numerals for long strings, or for hex, where you get the a - f numerals in which has no “normal” equivalent.
And while I knew someone was going to bring up “New Math” hear how natural it is for him to say one hundred base eight.
Let’s not forget the important lesson imparted by Strong Bad: enter 530453090 into your calculator, and when you turn it 180 degrees, it reads: 0b0ESh0ES
Clearly important for those looking for woodwind based foot apparel.
Oboeshoes sideways…I had to reed that twice.
Oh, pipe down.
Personally, I think that you can get away with anything under 16 by referring to as
“binary <decimal number>” I mean if we’re sitting around and you see 1111, you can get away with calling it binary 15 because it’s low enough that people can convert in their heads.
Just my 10 cents.
That’s not really calling it binary <decimal number>; that’s just calling it binary <its actual name>. Granted, its actual name follows, in English and many other languages, a pattern which is certainly based around 10, but it’s not like you’re saying “binary one-five”.
Quit acting like an overgrown bassoon, ya big ape! 
I wish you guys woodwind down the silly punnery.
I thought it gave us sax appeal.
Joke a band director told me once.
You’re driving down the road and you see a sax player and an oboe player. Which one do you hit first?
The sax player. Business before pleasure.