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From: Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com>
Subject: Re: number bases
Date: 1999/11/02
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References: <381D4C88.B5E8BBE7@interact.net.au>
 <860624474wnr@diphi.demon.co.uk>
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In article <860624474wnr@diphi.demon.co.uk>,
  jpt@diphi.demon.co.uk wrote:
 where the radix
> used for the dividend and divisor could be anywhere between 2
and 45_000
> (radix**2 has to be less than Max_Int). I tried it with a few
different
> values, and the clear winner on speed was a radix of 256. (I
don't know
> about storage). This was Gnat 3.10 on Win95.

Of course the efficient way to do multiple precision on
a machine with k-bit words is to use a radix of 2**k, but
higher level languages make this approach hard. Multiple
precision integer arithmetic is one of the few things I
know that is FAR easier to program in machine language than
in typical high level languages (which do not give convenient
access to the necessary primitives, namely the carry flag, and
double length products and dividends).


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