Seiler@MIT-XX.ARPA (02/18/84)
From: Larry Seiler <Seiler@MIT-XX.ARPA> FLoating point numbers are the wrong thing to use in what is essentially an integral application (integral numbers of pennies). Although there are ways around this - such as rounding values to the nearest penny before comparing them. If you want ease of use for those MBA's (a worthy goal, certainly), then print out numbers and let them type numbers with two digits past the decimal point, but store all numbers internally as numbers of pennies (the MBA's won't be writing programs, just using them). And keep those MBA's away from Multiplan. While I love Multiplan dearly, don't expect it to work any better than Turbo Pascal on floating point comparisons. In fact, my copy of Multiplan (for the VT180) can't even round zero to two decimal places and get something that is equal to zero (details on request). Number representation is a tricky problem, I'm sorry to say, and I'd hate to use a tax program written by someone who couldn't see what the problem is. Larry -------