On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:13:28 -0400, "robb" wrote:


"Rich Grise" wrote in message
news
On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:23:27 -0400, robb wrote:
[snip]
even has 80-bit floats!

if you need 80 bit floats ....
I am surprised you guys are not using some functional
programming
language like scheme (lisp/Lambda calc variants) where your
reals
are number abstractions with no language or data type imposed
limit on the number size or precision and of course no
numerical
methods issues/errors from typical float/double data type
limitations
just wondering,

Loosely-typed or untyped data is a mare's nest of bugs just
waiting to happen.

Cheers!
Rich


I should have known better than to bring up software in hardware
group :}

perhaps you meant flexible or dynamic instead of loosely and un
typed ?

it is very strongly typed as there are a few predefined basic
prmitives and "everything" is a defined type even operators and
and functions are all user defined types (or library of other
users types) some say scalable

i am sure they said the same things about basic when it was first
introduced along with a host of other seemingly magical things
that illicited suspicion at first and then gave way to acceptance
and trust.

a scheme implementation is what ? basic with some datastructures
{stacks,lists,etc}

and look at that google reveals 'BIT' a scheme implementation
for microcontroller running in 4k ram and stored in 13k rom among
others

not trying to start any wars i was curious why hrdw engy types
still use basic as opposed to other very useful tools that exist
that have eliminated many problems associated with those old
tools,

I write engineering apps in Basic because it's fast, it's easy, and it
works. And because the resulting programs are easy to read and
understand. "Windows" programming has far too much overhead... I just
want the answers.

Engineers are nearly unique in that we are a class of people who
program, but are not programmers. The closest the rest of the
non-programmer population gets to actual coding is to use
spreadsheets, or maybe design web pages.

Here's a simulation of a CRT vector character generator, for a
heads-up display on a military airplane. It takes into account the
character generator, DAC response, deflectiion amp response, and
phosphor characteristics. All done in a day, in PowerBasic.

John