Fran�ois Van Emelen writes: <> > Why I don't use PRINT_USING, well because it has the same limits as > FDEC$,ie 9 digits, which is not enough to display (for example) the > annual amount of euros the European Community spends for Education: > 776.4 million euros with should be displayed as '776400000.00'. And that > is more than 9 digits. > > Archive, Abacus and calc (small calculator under ProWesS) can display > much larger floating point values (and can be used in calculations). > Does that mean those programmes have their own FP routines? If so, can't > those routines be emulated in SBASIC? Or is this a stupid question?
Yes, the Psion suite has its own fp routines (more precision (14 (16) digits) but less magnitude). It is not too difficult to write your own fixed or floating point routines in Basic using basic school maths, but they would be relatively slow. (The book "Mathematics on the Sinclair QL", by Czes Kosniowski (out of print) might provide a suitable starting point.) But with the sort of numbers you give in your example (above) is it really meaningful to operate with a precision of euro cents? Of course it depends on what youre trying to do, but it seems to me that a resolution of a thousand euro (or even a million) would give you a reasonably precise way of dealing with those sort of figures. A suitable adaptation of the maxim "If you cant change the world, change yourself!" might usefully be applied to the problem. Per
