[comp.sys.handhelds] Does the 48sx use BCD?

b2676870@rick.cs.ubc.ca (wilson w ma) (05/22/91)

In article <1991May21.120147.4627@saaf.se> pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter) writes:
>Of course.  THis is a limitation inherent in using BCD representaion for
>floating-point numbers.  1/3 is 0.33333333....... infinetley, so it must
>be rounded off somewhere.  Suppose we round off after 12 digits:
>0.333333333333   Now we want to multiply this with 3 - the answer to this
>IS 0.999999999999 to 12 decimal places.
[deleted...]

Are you saying that the 48sx uses BCD? (I posted an article previously asking
about floating point radix base and no one answered...)

I need to know because I'm translating some code from Numerical Recipes.

>Paul Schlyter, Swedish Amateur Astronomer's Society (SAAF)
>InterNet:  pausch@saaf.se
>FidoNet:   2:201/600.2

George

bson@rice-chex.ai.mit.edu (Jan Brittenson) (05/22/91)

In a posting of [22 May 91 03:18:14 GMT]
   b2676870@rick.cs.ubc.ca (wilson w ma) writes:

 > Are you saying that the 48sx uses BCD?

   `Decimal' is probably a better term. 12 digits mantissa, one sign
digit, and three digits 10's exponent (10's complement, i.e. 999 = -1,
998 = -2, etc).

						-- Jan Brittenson
						   bson@ai.mit.edu