From: anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at   
      
   anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) writes:   
   >For multiplication, one common operation is to multiply a price with a   
   >number of pieces resulting in a price, and no rescaling is necessary   
   >there.  Another common operation is to compute a percentage; you do   
   >have rescaling there.   
      
   One interesting aspect is that the interest rates I have seen are   
   multiples of 1/800 (e.g., 1 3/4%=7/4%=14/8%=14/800).  One can also   
   represent these through decimal scales, but the decimal scale that   
   allows to represent them is 1/100000 (1/800=125/100000).  It may be   
   more economical in bits to scale with 1/800 (or maybe 1/1600 to be   
   prepared the next innovation in finance).   
      
   For tax rates, IIRC I have also seen half percentages, so using a   
   1/800 or 1/1600 scale factor may be a good idea for them, too.   
      
   - anton   
   --   
   'Anyone trying for "industrial quality" ISA should avoid undefined behavior.'   
     Mitch Alsup,    
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)