Re: A Simplified Number System

From: Wiktor S. (look_at_my.sig)
Date: 11/02/04 

Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 17:28:06 +0100

> Sean> What are your "fixed point numbers"? The ones most familiar
> Sean> to me are BCD.
>
> Fixed point is as opposed to floating point. Recall that a floating
> point number consists of 2 (signed) parts: mantissa and exponent.
> With fixed point, I mean the exponent is always fixed. So, you only
> need to store the mantissa. The exponent is implicit. You would of
> course use exponents that are (negative) powers of 10 for financial
> applications. A reasonable way to represent the mantissa in binary is
> to use 2's complement form.

It's like keeping all prices in cents instead of dollars and it's fractions
(or whatever currencies you use). I think it's the best solution. Normal
integers and normal arithmetics. You only need to display them correctly. No
weird BCD, no special structures. 

-- 
Azarien
e-mail: wswiktor&poczta,fm

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