> Two good examples where 'analogue' has made a return 1) Car > speedos started > going digital in the UK in the 80's. People didn't like them so the old > dial and needle format came back. 2) There is a healthy trend in people > buying 'balance' style weighing scales for the kitchen (the type with the > tray on one side and loose weights on the other) - these are old > fashioned > looking and old fashioned technologically - but many like it. >
It's quite reasonable to argue that digital technology isn't the answer to everything, particularly when it comes to the human interface, but the situation with regard to measurement is quite different. Metric is a coherent system purposely designed to be so. Other measures are not, they have become what they are because they have descended from disparate applications where they were invented for specific purposes (often no longer relevent) and subject to regional variations. Hence they are characterised by a patchwork quilt of unit size ratios after belated attempts to rationalise them. People are not purposely choosing them in preference to metric they are simply reacting to the environment in which they live and were brought up in and the continued need to engage them because they persist and haven't experienced an all metric world where they can see it working properly. This is why it's so important not to try and mix metric with non-metric, they are incompatible and the advantages of metric are not properly realised. The advancement that the development of the SI represents marks an improvement in the way we measure and should not be made to co-exist indefinitely with old measures that are no longer needed. In the end it doesn't compare with other technological issues like digital versus analogue, where the advantages don't depend on universal use and education before they can be seen. Their impact is immediate and market forces do the job of natural selection for them. Phil Hall
