15 Oct
2011
15 Oct
'11
10:02 p.m.
> FAT16, for example used a SIGNED long for both
the file size and for the
> maximum partition size. Therefore, instead of 0 to 4GB, the range was
> -2GB to +2GB
> That opens up some interesting possibilities!
> I stepped on the DIR of a floppy disk, and created a -2GB file. I then
> copied that file to an almost full hard disk, in order to get more disk
> space without the DANGERS! of compression. It didn't work.
On Sat, 15 Oct 2011, ben wrote:
Did you remember the -2GB is for imaginary data when C
gets REAL numbers.
"COMPLEX" numbers maybe?
I always hated having to explain to students that "REAL" numbers in
languages such as BASIC were floating point binary approximations, and
were absolutely NOT "REAL" numbers. Until about 6 years ago, we actually
had a course in "Computer Math", in which we tried to teach students
[among other things] how floating point worked. Of course, we had to
start by undoing a lot of what they had previously been taught, such as
that PI was EXACTLY 22/7 ! (half a century ago, in elementary school, I
got into "big trouble" for telling a teacher that PI was NOT 22/7 !)