XPost: rec.arts.comics.strips   
   From: kludge@panix.com   
      
   Cryptoengineer   wrote:   
   >   
   >When I worked at Irving Trust (a big Wall Street bank) in the 80s, one   
   >of our transaction management systems stored currency amounts as 96   
   >bit integer quantities of pennies.   
      
   This is the smart way to do it; more compact than BCD and often faster.   
      
   Some older British computers had special instructions and formats in   
   hardware for dealing with pre-decimalization currency.  Thankfully in   
   America we escaped all that.   
   --scott   
   --   
   "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)