Tonal Bitcoin

2011-04-06T21:48:40Z

BrotherE: /* Criticism */ No need for funny characters not represented in mainstream fonts if we use C hexadecimal numbers

Please note, that all numbers of TBC and its divisions/multipliers are written in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonal_System Tonal], not decimal.
This means that instead of counting 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10-- you count: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, , 9, , , , , , 10. Some higher-value digits may require installing a [http://luke.dashjr.org/education/tonal/glyphs/fonts/ font].

{| border="1" style="text-align:right;font-family:Console, Luxi Mono, fixed"
|- style="background-color:silver"
! Abbreviation
! Pronunciation
! [[Tonal BitCoin|Tonal (TBC)]]
! Decimal (BTC)
|-
|
| Tam-BitCoin
| 1,0000,0000     
| 2,814,749.76710656
|-
| ᵇTBC
| Bong-BitCoin
| 1,0000     
| 42.94967296
|-
| ᵐTBC
| Mill-BitCoin
| 1000     
| 2.68435456
|-
| ˢTBC
| San-Bitcoin
| 100     
| 0.16777216
|-
| ᵗTBC
| Ton-BitCoin
| 10     
| 0.01048576
|-
| TBC
| BitCoin*
| 1     
| 0.00065536
|-
| TBCᵗ
| BitCoin-ton
| 0.1   
| 0.00004096
|-
| TBCˢ
| BitCoin-san
| 0.01  
| 0.00000256
|-
| TBCᵐ
| BitCoin-mill
| 0.001 
| 0.00000016
|-
| TBCᵇ
| BitCoin-bong
| 0.0001
| 0.00000001
|}

<small>* Tonal BitCoin and Decimal BitCoin can be differentiated by the pronunciation of the numbers. "One bitcoin", "two bitcoin", etc is decimal, but "an bitcoin", "de bitcoin" is tonal.</small>

The total number of Tonal BitCoins ever (analogous to the 21mil BTC) is just over 7.75059 tam-bitcoin.

For more information on the Tonal system in general, please see [http://www.lulu.com/product/file-download/tonal-system/10991091 the book].

== Compatible Clients ==

While all BitCoin clients will correctly approximate values in decimal bitcoin, actual Tonal compatibility is sparse.

* [[Spesmilo]], despite its name, can be configured to display TBC

== Guessing TBC or BTC ==

Given variable 'value' in base units (uBTCents/TBCᵇ), one can guess whether it is properly Decimal BitCoin or Tonal BitCoin with the following pseudo-code:

if ( ! ( this % 0x10000 ) )
Choose Tonal BitCoin
if ( ! ( this % 1000000 ) )
Choose Decimal BitCoin
if ( ! ( this % 0x100 ) )
Choose Tonal BitCoin

=== Python ===

<pre>import math

def formatBTC(n, addSign = False):
s = "%0.2f BTC" % (math.ceil(n * 100) / 100.,)
if addSign and n >= 0:
s = "+" + s
return s

def Bitcoin2BTC(n):
return n / 100000000.

toTonalDict = dict(((57, u'\ue9d9'), (65, u'\ue9da'), (66, u'\ue9db'), (67, u'\ue9dc'), (68, u'\ue9dd'), (69, u'\ue9de'), (70, u'\ue9df'), (97, u'\ue9da'), (98, u'\ue9db'), (99, u'\ue9dc'), (100, u'\ue9dd'), (101, u'\ue9de'), (102, u'\ue9df')))

def formatTBC(n, addSign = False):
s = "%x" % n
n %= 1
if n:
s += '.'
while n:
n *= 16
s += "%x" % n
n %= 1
s = unicode(s).translate(toTonalDict)
s += " TBC"
if addSign and n >= 0:
s = "+" + s
return s

def Bitcoin2TBC(n):
return n / 65536.

def formatBitcoin(n, addSign = False):
if not n % 0x10000:
return formatTBC(Bitcoin2TBC(n), addSign);
if not n % 1000000:
return formatBTC(Bitcoin2BTC(n), addSign);
if not n % 0x100:
return formatTBC(Bitcoin2TBC(n), addSign);
s = "%d uBTCents" % (n,);
if addSign and n > 0:
s = "+" + s;
return s;</pre>

== Criticism ==

All irrational/emotional resistance to change, so far. (if you disagree, put a RATIONAL argument here)

=== Can be done without funny characters ===

The tonal notation requires extra fonts. Within the programming community there is a widely accepted convention for hexadecimal notation: use A-F for the higher order digits. Thus, one counts 0,1,2,3, ... , 9,A,B,C,D,E,F,10,11 .... There are even two conventions, (which are lacking in tonal) for distinguishing a base-16 number from a decimal. The C convention prefixes 0x and the Motorola convention suffixes h. So, the number san, 256 (decimal) would be written 0x100 or 100h. In tonal notation, it would only be written 100, and thus potentially confused with decimal 100 which is 0x64.

Thus programming notation accomplishes the same goals as tonal notation with no requirement for changing fonts, thus is more suited to wide usage. Further the prefix and suffix conventions lead to less ambiguity.

Bitcoin Wiki - User contributions [en]

Tonal Bitcoin