"A few... recognized and corrected the inconvenience of the parameter R \neq 1. Since computations in the sexigesimal system were customary, this inconvenience could be minimized by putting R = 60 = 1,0 , in imitation of the Ptolemaic chord function. The astronomer Habash... tabulated... the function 1,0 \cdot \tan \theta ...[M]ultiplication or division by R becomes a... matter (as we would put it) of shifting the sexigesimal point..."