>>>>> "Peter" == Peter L Peres writes: Peter> >> Since you haven't quoted any of the history of this thread, we can >> only guess as to what "it" refers. If "it" is "bc", then your >> suggestion about the 32 bit limitation is wrong. bc is an arbitrary >> precision calculator. Now, you do need to specify the precision >> before a calculation. That's what the "scale" command does. Also, >> if you wish to use bc for floating point, then you need to invoke >> it with the -l (ell) option. Peter> Peter> I know all that. My response was to the original question, and Peter> the it was the MS windows calculator. As I said I know and use Peter> bc. Peter> Peter> Btw no-one has mentioned that one can write programs for bc Peter> (not just use it interactively). This is a powerful feature if Peter> you need to do something repetitively. Peter> Peter> Peter Perhaps it is also worthy of mention that a bc can be found for DOS/Windows. I use the "GNU Tools for MS-Windows and MS-DOS" CD and book, which I ordered from the Free Software Foundation. It includes a simple install script, which puts everything in C:\gnu or the directory of your choice (no messing with the registry, uninstalling is as simple as deleteing the directory) (you can also set it up to run directly off the CD-ROM) and inludes emacs, vi, bash, sed, awk, perl, find, grep, dd, cpio, make, all those good things, including of course bc. I think the cygwin distribution does the same, but last time I messed with it I could not figure out how to download everything to make a CD, only how to install over the web, and I needed to put it on a non-net connected machine. If someone is interested in this CD or a few of the tools from it and can't get it from other sources, send me an email off the list. I might be able to email you the stuff you want, or mail you a CD. --Rob -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.