HP-71 BASIC funny quirks

[Albert Chan]

Thank you all for your informed explanations. I am learning a lot!

If I understand correctly, the process of tokenizing HP71B program, we lose the source.
That's why de-compiler was needed, to reconstruct the source, as close as possible.
This save memory, at the cost of slower program listing. (reconstruction takes time)

(01-27-2023 04:21 PM)J-F Garnier Wrote:  The initial intent was very likely to have a constant value embedded in program lines looks exactly as the STD output for the same number ... The bug is that it wrongly combines a BCD number (the number's exponent) and a binary number (the number of digits). A classic bug when programming on HP processors (Classic, Nut, Saturn). So the test is inefficient and this explains that we can get constants in a FIX-like format and more than 12 digits.

Still, I was a bit unclear.
If the goal is STD mode for all numbers, why is the test necessary?

No test, no bug?