Re: Display Engineering Notation with SI Prefix

On Thu, 29 Aug 2024 12:39:20 +0000, dxf wrote:
[..]

So iForth PRECISION equates to 'decimal places'.

Yes. I appreciate the mathematical rigor of SET-PRECISION,
but literally *none* of my academic and engineering friends
*ever* complained about iForth's evil deviation. Who really
likes to see
-1e 0e 0.5e 0e z^ z.  0.0000000000000000612323399573677 + i1.  ok
3 set-precision  ok
-1e 0e 0.5e 0e z^ z.  0.0000000000000000612 + i1.  ok
in computed output?

Didn't F83 have DIGITS ?

>
Neither Laxen/Perry F83 nor Forth-83 had floating point.  You may be
thinking of PLACES from 'The Forth Vendors Group Standard Floating
Point Extension' (?)

Yes, that was it. Although one actually wants PLACES, I can
understand why it makes more sense to standardize SET-PRECISION .

Has any language other that Forth opted for 'significant digits' over
(or in addition to) 'decimal places'?  The former seems particularly
suited to engineering.

Not that I know of ...
The problem with PLACES is that a printout of results after a
few hours of number-crunching may be useless when
one has estimated the range of the likely outcomes wrong.
-marcel