CompuServe Thread

#Long Reals

3 messages in this thread
#1011From: Doug WingerAug 30, 1988 7:28 PM
Vic, Then what's all this nonsense about BCD, then? 8) Doug
#1029From: Vic WagnerAug 31, 1988 2:00 PM
Doug, you got me. I think the 'problem' is that people no longer understand fixed point arithmetic. Them that use BCD are afraid of binary.
#1222From: Bill RobertsSep 5, 1988 9:29 PM
No. It is just that slide rules went out in part because they don't keep track of decimal points for you, and pocket calculators do. The problem gets worse when you must do 1,000,000 calculations, and some of the values are multipled by 3.45% (.0345 or four decimal places) while others are multiplied by 16.1% (or three decimal places). Computers keep track of things like that much better than people. Of course, I don't even want to talk about rounding errors (1/10 is a repeating decimal in binary).