Netonix Forums

Yes, I have gotten old and cranky, we all know that, so here is my rant.

I'm tired of confusing a "6" and a "b".

This old thread was very logical: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1463&p=10818&hilit=+upper+case+#p10818

but I wish it had gone the extra mile.

A long time ago, when hexadecimal representation became extremely logical (look how clumsy IP addresses are without it ... and don't even say the word "octal"!), it was always stated that the symbols A through F would represent the extra digits ... and that worked very nicely!

Then it seems some lazy bums came along and decided they couldn't expend the extra energy for their little fingers to hold down the shift key. Bah humbug !

When a human writes a numeric decimal value, it has always had an implication of precision. Maybe that's why numeric decimal digits never evolved into upper & lower case ?

Of course this is not a huge firmware issue.

But if you want to keep me from frowning every time I need to cut-n-paste a MAC from a GUI page and up-convert each lower case hexadecimal digit so that my reports, saved-config filenames and network maps have consistent readability...
and database sort function collating sequence...,
please evolve to uppercase only symbols.

...OK Thank you for listening. I'm done.


(Edit: Added collating sequence)

Personally, I don't have a problem distinguishing between 'b' and '6', but would agree 100% that upper case would make mac addresses much easier to read.

What about an 8 and a B if it is in upper case?

Also, ":" or "-" as separator? Of course the ":" requires the shift key whereas the "-" doesn't.

sakita wrote:Also, ":" or "-" as separator?

IEEE 802-2014 Section 8.1 (MAC addresses) Terms and notational conventions defines hexadecimal representation of MAC addresses as

"... pairs of hexadecimal digits separated by hyphens."

It also notes that historically, separating by colons is used for bit-reversed representation. (AC-DE-48-12-7B-80 == 35:7B:12:48:DE:01)


The standard says nothing about uppercase or lowercase, although I personally find uppercase easier to read.

I use so much devices that display it in so much format. Why stop there ?

I would like option to choose between upper and lower case, 2 or 4 digits between each separator, separator choice between colon, dot and hyphen, etc. Stephen, I pay you a beer if you can also include unicorn icon as separator.

Omniflux wrote:

sakita wrote:Also, ":" or "-" as separator?

IEEE 802-2014 Section 8.1 (MAC addresses) Terms and notational conventions defines hexadecimal representation of MAC addresses as

"... pairs of hexadecimal digits separated by hyphens."

It also notes that historically, separating by colons is used for bit-reversed representation. (AC-DE-48-12-7B-80 == 35:7B:12:48:DE:01)


The standard says nothing about uppercase or lowercase, although I personally find uppercase easier to read.

I have no problem with hyphens.

But I also feel the standard didn't need to say anything about what a hexadecimal digit was. Years before, IBM research scientists and hardware / software developers defined the symbols A-F as representing the values of digits in the decimal quantities 10-15. In that sense they were not characters. They could have come from "APL land" and invented a whole new set of symbols, but luckily they chose ones that were easily typed on a common keyboard.

mike99 wrote:I use so much devices that display it in so much format. Why stop there ?

I would like option to choose between upper and lower case, 2 or 4 digits between each separator, separator choice between colon, dot and hyphen, etc. Stephen, I pay you a beer if you can also include unicorn icon as separator.

Indeed. And part of that mindset is probably why we haven't been able to land people back on the moon for almost 50 years.

JustJoe wrote:

mike99 wrote:I use so much devices that display it in so much format. Why stop there ?

I would like option to choose between upper and lower case, 2 or 4 digits between each separator, separator choice between colon, dot and hyphen, etc. Stephen, I pay you a beer if you can also include unicorn icon as separator.

Indeed. And part of that mindset is probably why we haven't been able to land people back on the moon for almost 50 years.

Next on the agenda: NASA loses contact with a spacecraft because somebody used : separator but forgot to bit-reverse the address (Honestly hadn't seen that in the standard but have dealt with devices that use both notations). I wonder why Europeans don't use , to separate MAC addresses while 'Muricans use . separator? (just kidding, let's not set back international relations by discussing)

Anyway, all joking aside, I'm old and cranky too and upper-case with - separator is fine.