On 2013-12-21 10:59, Roy Smith wrote: > > In know that my first BASIC, Applesoft BASIC had the 2-character > > names, and you had to load Integer Basic (with Ints in addition > > to the standard Floats used in the BASIC provided by the ROM, a > > strange choice). > > Why is it a strange choice? If you're only going to support a > single type of numeric value, floats make a lot more sense than > ints. Floats are a superset of integers. > > Javascript, anyone?
It's one thing when JS uses bajillion-bit precision on the floats. With an 8-bit processor, the accuracy was wanting (according to Wikipedia[1], single-precision with 8-bit exponent & 31-bit significand), so you'd often hit cases where INT1 + INT2 *should* equal INT3 + INT4, but because of floating-point errors, they wouldn't. It's maddening to have the mathematical equivalent of 2 + 4 != 1 + 5 manifest itself in your programs. And even harder to explain to a middle-schooler that I was at the time. :-/ Also, one of the main reasons to choose INTEGER BASIC on the Apple was that was notably faster, since FP math was managed in software, rather than in dedicated FP hardware. -tkc [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applesoft_basic#Background -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
