C needs BCD -- why BCD? Accountants!

[Henry Spencer]

> 	when you're looking at a disk buffer for the record that seems
> 	to have the wrong number in it, it saves a lot of time if the
> 	number is intelligible to carbon-based, as well as silicon-based
> 	forms.

Silicon-based entities are generally willing to translate, if asked.
In fact they have to, since the relationship between their bit patterns
and the symbols we see on our screens and printers is arbitrary and
requires translation.

I generally store my data on disk in ASCII characters too, but I'd never
consider trying to do arithmetic on it that way.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry