Does any one recognize this binary data storage format

[Grant Edwards]

On 2005-08-10, John Machin <sjmachin at lexicon.net> wrote:

>>>>Perhaps the one bit is an exponent -- some kind of floating point
>>>>based format?  That matches the doubling of all digits.
>>>
>>>That would just be sick.  I can't imagine anybody on an 8-bit
>>>CPU using FP for a phone number.

>>  >>> double_binary_lehex_to_double('000000806a6e4941')
>>  3333333.0
>>  >>> double_binary_lehex_to_double('000000806a6e5941')
>>  6666666.0
>>  >>> double_binary_lehex_to_double('0000108777F9Fc41')
>>  7777777777.0
>> 
>> ;-)
>
> Well done, Scott & Bengt!!
> I've just verified that this works with all 12 corrected examples posted 
> by the OP.
>
> Grant, MS-DOS implies 16 bits at least;

You're right.  For some reason I was thinking you had said CP/M.

> and yes there was an FPU (the 8087).

I never met an MS-DOS box that had an 8087 (though I did write
firmware for an 8086+8087 fire-control computer once upon a
time).

> And yes there are a lot of sick people who store things as 
> numbers (whether integer or FP) when the only arithmetic
> operations that can be applied to them stuff them up mightily
> (like losing leading zeroes off post-codes, having NEGATIVE
> tax file numbers, etc) and it's still happening on the best
> OSes and 64-bit CPUS. Welcome to the real world :-)

I've been in the real world for a long time, and the dumb
things people (including myself) do still surprise me.

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  Hello, GORRY-O!! I'm
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