22 Jun
2026
22 Jun
'26
12:47 p.m.
On Jun 22, 2026, at 3:39 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Mon, 22 Jun 2026, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
No, but he was a member of the COBOL compiler team so it was a case of pushing the limits
of what he worked on every day.
I also remember running into him late one night, in the middle of a debug session. I
asked what he was working on. Answer "packed decimal exponentiation". My
question "what is that used for?" Answer: "compound interest in COBOL
programming".
Oh yeah.
paul
Wow. I've never heard of that, or seen it
done. And I would certainly never have considered doing so myself.
Then again, one of my DEC colleagues wrote a parser in COBOL, but that was more a
"watch this -- hold my beer" type of thing.
Wow
Was there also a wager involved?