Is .2 irrational?

[Steven E. Rice, P.E.]

In article <1384 at bunker.UUCP>, Gary M. Samuelson (garys at bunker.UUCP)
writes:

> . . .  The
> problem is that it is not possible to represent exactly that particular
> number in typical floating point formats.  A floating point format could
> be designed which allowed exact representation of all decimal fractions,
> up to some number of places precision, but I know of no implementation
> which does that.  . . .

Oh, how quickly the glory fades!  The IBM 1620 does (now mostly _did_)
exactly what you wanted, since it is (was) a variable-operand-length, BCD
machine.

					Steve Rice

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