scott a écrit :
>> Because when you're talking about thousands of dollars as the smallest 
>> increment, that wastes space.
> 
> Oh I see, so it's like a base-10 float?
> 
>> And usually (at least in modern standards) these numbers go up to 
>> something like 38 digits. So why would an "int" be better than packed 
>> decimal in terms of processing speed?
> 
> It would avoid the need for custom hardware, but obviously it works out 
> faster per $ to get the non-standard CPUs if that's what they actually use.
> 
> 
What do you mean non-standard?  Every single bank, every single 
insurance company, every single government tax agency/ministry/dept., 
most airline, universities, and large companies with more than a 1000 
employees worldwide has one or more IBM mainframes.

I'd call that "standard"!

Tin foil hat dept:  And they all have a phone line to call back home in 
case of problems.  The more paranoid think Big Blue can also use those 
phone lines for its own nefarious purposes.
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