Pounds, shillings, and pence: a history of English coinage

Let's get even deeper with the 100 vs 240. Let's stop using base 10 numbers altogether and start using base 12... The difficulty, like always comes from the fact that we are used to our numbers, but aside from the fact that we have 10 fingers they have nothing else going for them...

17:41 How DARE you question Gary's knowledge of basic mathematics?? Oh Lloyd, good god, man! Think for a moment! If 20 silver pieces = 1 gold piece, and 1 electrum = 10 silver pieces... then 2 electrum = 1 gold piece! you are aware of this, right? You are in fact confirming the historical validity of the Dungeons and Dragons handbook. Well done, Gary!

You can't imagine how long I've yearned for this exact information

Your complaints about the British pint at 45 minutes in reminds me of an annoyance with Imperial measurements. There is an old saying, "A pint is a pound the whole world round," referring to the fact that one pint of water—or beer—weighed one pound. However, in the 1824 Weights and Measures Act, a pint was changed from one-eighth of an ale gallon to one-tenth of the new Imperial gallon. So now the rhyme works in the United States which still uses the old pint, but in the UK and other countries that adopted the Imperial gallon, it had to be amended to say, "A pint of pure water weighs a pound and a quarter," which isn't nearly as elegant. Good job with the decimal pints. 😖

In support of the "calculator would have an appropriate key" argument, mechanical tills (cash registers) were introduced around the turn of the 20th Century. The were first invented in the US (IIRC) which uses a decimal system for their currency. They also sold them in the UK. These machines were just as able to add up in L.s.d as they were for a decimal system, once the appropriate changes had been made. If a mechanical system can be built to add in L.s.d. then it shouldn't be impossible for a calculator to do so.

Did any of those tangents lead you to finish the script of you-know-what?

Oh dear lord 😭. Nearly an hour of watching an interesting exposition on currency - stood in front of *squint shelves* you utter utter bastard!