.... one thing I will say in its favour though particularly on older gear is at least it indicates that the area or segment of the display is working correctly and ready to tick over if required, probably more important on older LED and VFD displays.
Historic reasons: Back in the days of dumb SSI and even discrete logic, leading zero blanking cost gates and thus money.
I absolutely hate seeing multiple useless zeros displayed
I guess marketing happend and the engineers/programmers, had to play along.I doubt marketing had as much to do with it as some engineering decision early on. Once a company established a preference either way, they stuck with it.
"... If the number is between +1 and ?1, then the decimal marker is always preceded by a zero."
Quote"... If the number is between +1 and ?1, then the decimal marker is always preceded by a zero."
I expect it should read:
"... If the number is between +1 and -1, then the decimal marker is always preceded by a zero."
So what's your problem with this?
To me it makes perfect sense. Unless you think that .987 is the right way, of course.
I'd always use 0.987
.00
0.0
. 00
.00
0.0
. 00
Leading zeros are not misleading... All they tell you is that you that you are losing bits in your A/D conversion. Blanking leading zeros makes sense for low digit counts (like 3.5 digits). For high resolution devices it solves the question of how to display both the reading and the range at the same time.Yes. I think the main reason is so you immediately see that you are running way below full scale. You might not realise you are on the 1000V range when you are reading a 10V reference on some of the 7 1/7 or 8 1/2 meters. These meters often have many different modes with different levels of precision and so it is not at all obvious without the leading zeros.
This is a really good point.Leading zeros are not misleading... All they tell you is that you that you are losing bits in your A/D conversion. Blanking leading zeros makes sense for low digit counts (like 3.5 digits). For high resolution devices it solves the question of how to display both the reading and the range at the same time.Yes. I think the main reason is so you immediately see that you are running way below full scale. You might not realise you are on the 1000V range when you are reading a 10V reference on some of the 7 1/7 or 8 1/2 meters. These meters often have many different modes with different levels of precision and so it is not at all obvious without the leading zeros.
If you are reading near full scale, the problem disappears as you are using all the digits. It is only an aesthetic problem if you are reading way below full scale and the makers of these meters are favouring clarity over aesthetics.
The main clue to this is that if you have a 7 1/2 digit meter and you are running it in a high speed mode that only gives 4 digits of resolution (if it has one), they do not show all 8 digits. They only show 4 digits.
Leading zeros are not misleading... All they tell you is that you that you are losing bits in your A/D conversion. For high resolution devices it solves the question of how to display both the reading and the range at the same time.
As an example, if one were to measure using a 6 digit DMM and get a reading of 000.0158V one knows one should re-range the DMM. It could have blanked leading zeros or even converted to 15.8mV - but at that point one would have to deduce (using reasoning) that we are getting only 3 digits of dynamic range out of 6 possible digits. With leading zeros - this becomes plainly evident.
One reason I can think of for not blanking the leading zeros is so you can see when a digit is not working. How misleading a non-working digit can be can be seen in this video:. Having a non-working digit is not that unlikely with older equipment, however with modern (bitmapped) displays this should be a non-issue.
- To make sure the most significant digits are working, so you won't read 30.000 Vac instead of 230.000 Vac because of a faulty digit.
- To easily approximate the expected range/resolution
On a quick glance 830.000 Vac often looks like 030.000 Vac.
I find the extraneous leading zeroes disturbing, especially on professional-grade equipment. They increase the cognitive load when reading a value on the display, which is not desirable on a technical instrument. Although there are many seemingly plausible hypotheses as to why the practice persists, I don't find them to be all that compelling and they've mostly been debunked in this thread.Isn't that a sort of generalization of the concept of cargo-cult programming (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_programming)?
Unnecessary leading zeroes seem to me to be more a case of The Pot Roast Principle (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/thinking-makes-it-so/201402/the-pot-roast-principle). Keysight's response when queried about their inclusion of extraneous zeroes tends to support the notion.
- To make sure the most significant digits are working, so you won't read 30.000 Vac instead of 230.000 Vac because of a faulty digit.
- To easily approximate the expected range/resolution
On a quick glance 830.000 Vac often looks like 030.000 Vac.
IMHO underscores or 'o's are as bad as leading zeros. If you want users to see if the display is working add a lamp test. That could be done when powering on or via a lamp test button / menu function. Very simple and effective. UIs should be simple and intuitive, not overloaded with things that bewilder the user. Despite scientists researching UIs some vendors ignore very basic recommendations and totally screw up the UI of their devices.As others explained, display failure isn't the primary reason for that. It's that leading zeros do give an indication of what range you're in. By leaving them, but reducing them to a visible placeholder, you get the advantages of leading zeros AND the advantages of zero blanking.
You would think in this modern era, someone could put an option in a setup menu somewhere where you can select what you want..
I disagree as there are good reasons for both approaches. In labs where gear from many manufacturers are stacked, the lack of consistency causes confusion.You would think in this modern era, someone could put an option in a setup menu somewhere where you can select what you want..
That seems like the worst possible solution. Useless settings are the worst UI/UX decision that any product can make. They clutter the configuration menus making it more annoying to change settings that matter and they make the behavior inconsistent with almost no benefit. Like if we have 3 of the same meter in the lab, and someone converted one of them to use zero blanking, that would be really annoying. Or, if one of the people on this thread who thinks this is a *MAJOR ISSUE* (which it is categorically not), came by and helpfully turned on zero blanking for a meter I frequently use, that would just lead to extra confusion.
Zero blanking is a minor issue. I can see some minor benefits to both options, and I might have a slight preference for blanking, but it is absolutely not worth making it a configuration option. I think the term for what is going on here is not the pot roast principle or cargo cult engineering, but bike shedding.
HPAK does not use leading zeros in all their gear.
It seems to be only about readability, as it has no effect on precision.Interesting you say that. This high profile aircraft accident (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varig_Flight_254) was catalyzed by a problem with zeros.
You would not find aircraft instrumentation doing this, although Gerber files can have them (leading zeros) lol.
Historic reasons: Back in the days of dumb SSI and even discrete logic, leading zero blanking cost gates and thus money. It was compounded by range switching that simply had an auxiliary contact to select one of the decimal points to feed power to to light it. The logic typically didn't even 'know' which d.p. was lit, so it would have required a lot of extra circuitry to blank all except the zero in front of the active d.p.
As others explained, display failure isn't the primary reason for that. It's that leading zeros do give an indication of what range you're in. By leaving them, but reducing them to a visible placeholder, you get the advantages of leading zeros AND the advantages of zero blanking.
Another reason would be segmented displays with + and - annunciators to the left of the first digit (and units annunciators to the right of the last digit). Displaying:
+0001.6mV
would be vastly preferable to displaying:
+ 1.6mV
"Computerized" displays lead to all kinds of stupidity in terms of displaying measured values. Worst to see are the ones that treat everything as a float and display e.g. a room temperature reading with 5 digits after the decimal point - no joke, you can see such stupidity quite often in PC based software written by coders that do not know the usage of resolution and accuracy.
BTW.
Though beeing an European and beeing taught "," as the decimal separator, I do consider "." as _the only valid_ decimal seperator in science and technical issues, so any scientific or technical application displaying a "," gets cursed by me.
I don't think you understand the value of visual placeholders. They reduce cognitive load, not increase it, because they let you know exactly what you're not seeing, which is often easier than seeing. (Do you drive a car? If so, then you'll know how the purpose of glancing in your mirrors isn't actually to see what's there, but rather to verify what isn't there: another car.)As others explained, display failure isn't the primary reason for that. It's that leading zeros do give an indication of what range you're in. By leaving them, but reducing them to a visible placeholder, you get the advantages of leading zeros AND the advantages of zero blanking.
I think the main goal should be to display the measurement in a unambiguous way without any redundant leading zeros or strange symbols. Those cause more harm than good, because the measurement value can be misread easily. If a range indication is needed then add a dedicated one. Presumbaly this whole mess was created by minimizing BOM cost, since misusing the digits and drivers already available as a range indication is cheap, no additional segments and drivers are needed. But there's no excuse for graphical displays besides ignorance.
I prefer ",", as it's 'bigger' and can be seen easier even for people as short-sighted as me.... :-)
"Computerized" displays lead to all kinds of stupidity in terms of displaying measured values. Worst to see are the ones that treat everything as a float and display e.g. a room temperature reading with 5 digits after the decimal point - no joke, you can see such stupidity quite often in PC based software written by coders that do not know the usage of resolution and accuracy.
Especially stultefying when you try to explain this and the designer explains to you that those microkelvins do really exist, because it is analogue!BTW.
Though beeing an European and beeing taught "," as the decimal separator, I do consider "." as _the only valid_ decimal seperator in science and technical issues, so any scientific or technical application displaying a "," gets cursed by me.
Concur totally. As far as I know, most German engineers do. This does not hold true to our austrian neighbours. Austrian company took ours over and changed all document formats to use a comma instead of a DP.
Another reason would be segmented displays with + and - annunciators to the left of the first digit (and units annunciators to the right of the last digit). Displaying:Wut? The second is exactly what I'd want to see. That or +0001.6 mV.
+0001.6mV
would be vastly preferable to displaying:
+ 1.6mV
No meter I have ever used shows an annunciation for positive values, only for negative. No need to clutter the screen with them for positives.
I don't think you understand the value of visual placeholders. They reduce cognitive load, not increase it, because they let you know exactly what you're not seeing, which is often easier than seeing. (Do you drive a car? If so, then you'll know how the purpose of glancing in your mirrors isn't actually to see what's there, but rather to verify what isn't there: another car.)
Based on your reasoning I should see placeholders for cars which aren't there, just to make sure that I'm able to see something in case a car would turn up suddenly. Yeah, that really helps with driving :scared:
Based on my reasoning (and not your deliberately obtuse reimagination of it), the point is that you can glance at the mirror and see the "blank" mirror (showing just the road), versus a mirror with things in it (cars that you don't want to crash into). You're not actually looking at the mirror to look at the cars; you glance at it to verify quickly that it's "empty".I don't think you understand the value of visual placeholders. They reduce cognitive load, not increase it, because they let you know exactly what you're not seeing, which is often easier than seeing. (Do you drive a car? If so, then you'll know how the purpose of glancing in your mirrors isn't actually to see what's there, but rather to verify what isn't there: another car.)
Based on your reasoning I should see placeholders for cars which aren't there, just to make sure that I'm able to see something in case a car would turn up suddenly. Yeah, that really helps with driving :scared:
I suppose, but doesn't your meter already have an annunciatior for AC? The Fluke 87V (as well as my K2015) for example shows VDC and VAC to the right of the number, while the Keysight U1252B displays a ~ to the left of the number when in AC. (My K197 shows the tilde and AC when in AC.)No meter I have ever used shows an annunciation for positive values, only for negative. No need to clutter the screen with them for positives.
Displaying both + and - for DC measurements distinguishes them from AC measurements which have no polarity. If I see 1.23 volts, is that positive DC or AC?
Displaying both + and - for DC measurements distinguishes them from AC measurements which have no polarity. If I see 1.23 volts, is that positive DC or AC?
I suppose, but doesn't your meter already have an annunciatior for AC? The Fluke 87V (as well as my K2015) for example shows VDC and VAC to the right of the number, while the Keysight U1252B displays a ~ to the left of the number when in AC. (My K197 shows the tilde and AC when in AC.)