Counting only to eight

Did you know that two native American tribes, namely the Yukis and the Pames used octal (8-based) number systems? They counted using the spaces between their fingers rather than the fingers themselves so they could count only to 8 with two hands.

In 1718, the Swedish scientist Emanuel Swedenborg developed the arithmetics of the octal number system and wrote a manuscript on how to use it. He was entrusted by King Charles XII of Sweden with developing a 64-based number system but he thought it would be too complicated for less intelligent people. His paper, the Art of Counting Which Changes at the Number 8 Instead of the Usual at the Number 10 has not been published.

Octal number system is in use in today's computer technology, for example in UNIX operating systems. Interestingly, it is used by computer specialists and software but not the machines themselves. Computer hardware use binary number systems which have only two digits: 0 and 1.