AIP and big numbers
Posted: Thu Nov 28, 2019 2:33 pm
The function AIP behaves strangely when you try to put a big number in the alpha register.
Try calculating factorial 100, then AIP the result, and finally AVIEW the Alpha value. You will see 44 zeros.
What happens, is that the AIP function starts at the wrong end (least significant digit) and work its way towards the most significant digit, but stops when the alpha string is 44 characters long. Since the calculated result is only displayed with the 33 most significant digits, and the result is a number with 158 digits, it never gets to other digits than zero. If the number is bigger than 1.00E43, the most significant digits will be cut off, so here all the significant digits are cut off.
This behavior is not unique for the DM42.
The HP42 has the same problem, so i guess the feature (bug? error?) is well known to veteran HP42 users.
Try calculating factorial 100, then AIP the result, and finally AVIEW the Alpha value. You will see 44 zeros.
What happens, is that the AIP function starts at the wrong end (least significant digit) and work its way towards the most significant digit, but stops when the alpha string is 44 characters long. Since the calculated result is only displayed with the 33 most significant digits, and the result is a number with 158 digits, it never gets to other digits than zero. If the number is bigger than 1.00E43, the most significant digits will be cut off, so here all the significant digits are cut off.
This behavior is not unique for the DM42.
The HP42 has the same problem, so i guess the feature (bug? error?) is well known to veteran HP42 users.