overflow

[DA74254]

(03-08-2020 01:07 PM)Joe Horn Wrote:  Here's one way of doing 2018^2442 on the Prime. Please note that in CAS, pressing the LOG key types the log10() function, and Shift LOG types the alog10() function.

(1) Be sure you're in CAS view. This doesn't work in Home. Why? Dunno.
(2) log10(2018.)*2442 [Be sure to include the decimal point!] --> 8070.61747736
(3) alog10(fp(Ans)) --> 4.1445497719

The first result (in step 2) tells us the exponent of the final answer: 8070. Ignore everything after the decimal point.
The second result (in step 3) gives us the mantissa of the final answer: 4.14455 (rounded off)
Therefore, the answer for 2018^2442 is 4.14455 × 10^8070.

Please note that step 3 will almost always return some inaccurate digits, since it chops off the integer part of step 2's result, thereby losing that many digits of accuracy. In the above example, step 3 returns 4.1445497719, but the last 3 digits of that are wrong. So always discard the last few digits from step 3's result.

Programming the above method is trivial, and is left to the student for homework.

My emphasis. What do you mean with this? I just get a "syntax error" on that. What does "fp" mean?