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From: nathan@orstcs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: What next, 64 bits?
Message-ID: <24000020@orstcs.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 18-Mar-84 07:30:00 EST
Article-I.D.: orstcs.24000020
Posted: Sun Mar 18 07:30:00 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 21-Mar-84 05:17:10 EST
Organization: Oregon State University - Corvallis, OR
Lines: 27
Nf-ID: #N:orstcs:24000020:000:1167
Nf-From: orstcs!nathan    Mar 18 04:30:00 1984

Re: What next, 64 bits?

You are *wrong*.

A spreadsheet is probably the single most useful place to put
64 bit numbers.  Think about how much money you can represent
in 32 bits: (hint -- $20 million).  This isn't enough, even,
for a small-to-medium company.  Most programmers have given
up and use floating point representations of dollar figures,
rather than the (less treacherous) integer number of cents.

The inability of most C compilers to support a more-than-32-bit
representation without going to floating point is (in my view)
a major limitation in the language.  (that's not to say that
other languages are any better; Modula-2 doesn't even allow
32-bit numbers to be specified.)


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