23 Sep
2004
23 Sep
'04
3:43 a.m.
>>>> "Jim" == Jim Donoghue
<jim(a)smithy.com> writes:
Jim> On Wed, 2004-09-22 at 22:08, William Donzelli wrote:
> > There are SOME people (I am NOT one) who
actually feel that >
> DECIMAL is the right way to go in computers!
>
> If the computers are doing my bank statements, then yes, I am one
> of them.
Jim> I've always wondered what systems/processors (other than IBM
Jim> mainframes) that had hardware decimal arithmetic support. I
Jim> don't mean 'decimal adjust' instructions, I'm talking about full
Jim> add/subtract/multiply/divide/etc. The only other one I know of
Jim> is the Wang VS, which came standard with support for 'packed
Jim> decimal' data, and even floating-point decimal. The Wang VS
Jim> instruction set was very similar to the IBM 360/370, even the
Jim> packed decimal data format was the same.
VAX and PDP11 (with the CIS option) for starters.
paul