The Babylonians used a sexagesimal (base 60), and the Egyptians used a duo-decimal (base 12) Because you can trivially count to twelve on one hand. 12 joints t

The Babylonians used a sexagesimal (base 60), and the Egyptians used a duo-decimal (base 12) Because you can trivially count to twelve on one hand. 12 joints times 4 fingers getting you to 69. One The first few colossally abundant numbers: 2, 6, 12, 60, 120, 360 would have been ideal, with 12 most practical in hindsight. But in the golden age of India, decimal math is what they were working on and as they produced some important advancements to mathematics it won out except in areas where abundance matters like degrees, minutes, seconds. IBM 360s supported radix 16, but radix 10, due to decimalized standards was more popular. IEEE 754 has supported decimal floats for decades now, but as it required 4 bits, it wasn't implemented on microcomputers. Deterministic errors with less wafer space fit most needs.