The Crisis with Remailers

[Perry E. Metzger]

R.Hirschfeld at cwi.nl writes:
> > Date: Wed, 22 May 1996 15:04:04 -0400
> > From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry at piermont.com>
> > 
> > Floating point systems are built to do approximate math on a very wide
> > range of number sizes. Accounting systems require exact math -- down
> > to the cent. Floats aren't suitable.
> 
> I completely agree.  But are the usual fixed-point representations
> adequate for exchange rates, where it's not a matter of "down to the
> cent" but of ratios of cents and centimes?

It depends on the number of significant figures you need to
represent. Forex usually involves numbers with five significant
figures, which can be represented fairly conveniently in fixed point.

Perry