89^8 , electronical computer defeated.

[pier4r]

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1...76,5282043

Now I wonder, why?

Not enough ram? No proper large digits (for a 4bit ALU) routines to handle such large number?

Then 23 * 39 * 46 * 61 , 12 seconds? I mean I know that it was the 1954, but I would have expected less than 5 seconds.

Could someone explain / has more data?

[AlexFekken]

No I can't explain (though: a 48 bit-mantissa probably wasn't uncommon in those days and would explain it), but the final paragraph in the news article does show a signifcant level of, shall we say, mathematical ignorance on the part of the journalist. So perhaps we should not take the rest of the article too seriously either?

[Accutron]

Assuming that the 'electronic brain' was an IBM 650 (most likely possibility) it would not have been able to produce a 16-digit decimal result. Precision of a 650 was 10 digits with sign. Even after the introduction of floating point hardware in 1955, the 650 would not have been able to handle 89^8 at full precision.