[nuancebydefault]

Wow 2 * 1000 without rounding errors, 40 years ago this must have been super impressive, since I find that quite a feat of today's python.

[nick__m]

2 * 1000 is 2000 ;)

I think you meant 2**1000

the syntax for formatting ate your star https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc

[swores]

For anyone else who, like me a moment ago, doesn't know the meaning of ** but is curious: it's how many (but not all) programming languages express "to the power of", aka 2**1000 = 2^1000

[pansa2]

> 2**1000 = 2^1000

The reason for using `**` is that `^` is widely used for bitwise exclusive-or. So commonly `2**1000 != 2^1000`!

[kragen]

I think Fortran used ** because EBCDIC didn't have ^ or uparrow. ABC and Python followed Fortran rather than C on this point. units(1) supports both.

[vincent-manis]

BCD, actually, given that Fortran dates from the mid-1950s. EBCDIC only appeared more or less around Fortran IV, in the early 1960s. Many printers in those days had a 48-character chain/train. After upper-case letters, digits, and a few essential punctuation marks (like . and ,), you weren't left with many options. The 60-character set of PL/I was a luxury back then, let alone lower case.

[kragen]

Hmm, I guess you're right. Also EBCDIC does have ^ apparently, though not ↑: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBCDIC#Code_page_layout

But IBM's BCD character sets, including the 48-character ones you allude to, didn't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BCD_(character_encoding)#Examp... (though Honeywell's did)

There are a lot of decisions in Fortran that stem from the absence of useful characters. .LT., .LE., .EQ., .NE., .GT., and .GE. is another.

[shawn_w]

C uses ^ for bitwise xor and a function for exponentiation, though.

[kragen]

No, C does not have an exponentiation operator! Possibly you meant "and not a function for exponentiation".

I should have said "followed Fortran rather than BASIC".

[vanderZwan]

He's explaining that C was not the reason for picking * over ^

[swores]

Interesting, thanks!

[fainpul]

And != means ≠

[nuancebydefault]

Oh that's why i did not get any upvotes /i

[Lucasoato]

Wow, I didn't know that you could write

  like
    this
      for
        code
          blocks

[jockm]

It’s been around since at least occam, maybe longer

[doug-moen]

Lisp has had arbitrary precision arithmetic since the early 1970s. So did dc on Unix, also in the early 1970s. ABC didn't arrive until 1987.

[aidenn0]

    Python 3.11.13 (main, Jun  3 2025, 18:38:25) [GCC 14.3.0] on linux
    Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
    >>> 2**1000
    10715086071862673209484250490600018105614048117055336074437503883703510511249361224931983788156958581275946729175531468251871452856923140435984577574698574803934567774824230985421074605062371141877954182153046474983581941267398767559165543946077062914571196477686542167660429831652624386837205668069376
    >>> _/2**999
    2.0

[mpweiher]

That was kind of par-for-the-course back then.

LISP had it, Smalltalk had it, Unix dc/bc had it.