Re: JUST REMEMBER WHY WINDOWS WAS CREATED!!!!!!!!!

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Article #2400

#2400

From: "Bill G. Riel"
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 1995 17:29

63 lines
3105 bytes

John Varela (jav@mitre.org) wrote:

: Here are the results of some experimentation:


: From: Burgess Allison <allison@mitre.org>
: Newsgroups: mitre.corp.techbb,mitre.sys.mac
: Subject: Re: EXCEL BUG
: Date: 2 Oct 1995 14:04:09 GMT
: Message-ID: <44orgp$aeo@linus.mitre.org>
: References: <ferdman-2909951355440001@mferdman.mitre.org>

: Here's a summary:

: Go to a blank cell in an Excel spreadsheet.  Enter in this number:

:    1.40737488355328

: Excel displays

:    0.64

: It doesn't work for any numbers *close* to 1.40737488355328 (you know, 
: like 1.407374883553279 or 1.40737488355329), but it does mess up when 
: you enter various multiples of 1.40737488355328.  Two-times and 
: four-times produce bad numbers.  And multiplying any of the 1-2-4 
: patterns times various multiples of ten produces similar effects.  You
: can divide to get the same effect, but of course to retain the 1-2-4 
: pattern, you have to divide by 100, 50 and 25. (and multiples thereof).  
: (BTW, if multiplying by ten doesn't cause the bad effect, it'll 
: sometimes work if you multiply by 9.99999999999999.)

: The lowest number I've been able to affect directly is 
: 0.0140737488355328.  But if you divide that number by ten (i.e., produce 
: it indirectly), it'll be affected also.  The highest number I've been 
: able to trash directly is 562949953.421312 (1.4... times 400 million).  
: Indirectly, I've gone up as high as 1.4... 4E+236

: This does appear to be Excel-specific.  It "works" in Windows, OS/2, 
: Win95, Macintoshes.  And in every version of Excel we've been able to 
: test (4 through 7)

:    Burgess

This is really fascinating.  I have a really old version of Excel 
(version 1.0) and a Mac Plus lying around.  I'm going to have to
test that and see what happens. I'm wondering if this has always
been in Excel, or just appeared when the Mac & Windows versions
used a shared code base.

In any event, it certainly inspires confidence in the product ;-)

Bill




--

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Bill G. Riel                          Canadian Forest Service
briel@pfc.forestry.ca                 Victoria, BC
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.powerpc,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: JUST REMEMBER WHY WINDOWS WAS CREATED!!!!!!!!!
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From: briel@branch.pfc.forestry.ca ("Bill G. Riel")
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 1995 17:29:06 GMT
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