[Free42] Numbers reformatted in program mode

[Didier Lachieze]

This is documented on the Free42 FAQ:

Quote:In programs, numbers are normalized

This is not actually a difference between Free42 and the HP-42S that causes HP-42S programs to fail in Free42, but it is something that can cause confusion. What's going on?

In programs, the HP-42S stores numbers basically as you enter them. If you want to enter the number 1000 in a program, you can enter 1000, or 1E3; the latter saves one byte, but apart from that, there is no difference.

Free42, on the other hand, stores numbers in programs in floating-point format, which means that the distinction between 1000 and 1E3 is not preserved. When it displays a program line containing a number, it formats the number in whichever way would be the most compact on the HP-42S, so, if you enter 1000, it is displayed as 1E3, but if you enter 10, it is displayed as 10. (When scientific and fixed-point representations are the same length, it chooses the latter, so 100 is displayed as 100, not as 1E2.)

Again, none of this has any effect on how Free42 performs calculations. I am mentioning this here because even though it may appear that Free42 does something differently than the HP-42S, this is a difference you should ignore.