Jim, the metric system was invented because Europeans can't do fractional math. Justin On Oct 13, 2016, at 18:57, Jim Brain <brain@jbrain.com <mailto:brain@jbrain.com> > wrote: On 10/13/2016 1:12 PM, smf wrote: On 13/10/2016 18:38, Jim Brain wrote: But, it was very common in the early 70's. Lots of stuff was .156" It's common now as well, I'd be interested in the history of that. It's probably boring, like someone used it for some random reason then everyone copied it. It's not just computers that have strange measurements, 2 by fours are around 1.5 x 3.5 inches (metric 2 by fours are different again). Message was sent through the cbm-hackers mailing list Not to get off-topic long term, but I completely understand 2x4s. http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/misc/miscpub_6409.pdf Short answer: They were originally 2" by 4", but were rough. "Dressing" them to finished lumber brought down the size, and the demands for dressed lumber, at consistent sizes, shipped via rail, forced the 2x4 to become 1.5" by 3.5" At one point, the size was 1 5/8 * 3 5/8, but it was harder to calculate, so 1.5 by 3.5 became the norm. Of course, that's in horrid imperial measurements. No idea on metric. Jim -- Jim Brain brain@jbrain.com www.jbrain.com Message was sent through the cbm-hackers mailing listReceived on 2016-10-14 01:00:02
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