On Jan 9, 2009, at 8:47 AM, David Hobby wrote: >> And some of us became accustomed at an early age to integer number >> systems that wrap around from (2^n)-1 to -2^n, for various relatively >> small values of n. :) > > For some values of "early"? I don't think kindergarteners > count "1, 2, 3, -4, -3, ...". : ) > > ---David
Only on cheap two-bit computers. :) (Well, actually, that would be a cheap 3-bit computer..) Running into the 32767 -> -32768 wraparound was definitely an annoyance, though. (At the time, the environment I was playing in didn't have anything corresponding to a longint type, and I was just starting to find that wraparound a fairly seriously crippling limitation. It was only later that I learned about precision integer techniques, and they wouldn't have been feasible in the language or on the hardware I was using at the time anyway.) But having grown up with discreteness of that sort made my later approach to more theoretical math a bit .. odd. :D _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
