BL> poor VB doesn't have sfr and shl functions.

 FM> Doesn't really matter. ALongint shr 24 translates easily to
 FM> ALongint / 16,777,216. (And before anyone bites me on the bum,
 FM> we're in BASIC here so '/' will be integer division.)

  Aha! So I *can* just multiply by 2 lots of times! BTW, don't put the
commas in. Basic doesn't like that .

 FM> then the number is (-1)^S * M * 2^(E-128) and that's what that
 FM> code below calculates.

 BL> I saved all that, and will make sense of it later. Thanks,
 BL> Frank.

 FM> Then I made it too hard. That was supposed to elicit a flash
 FM> "AHA!"

  No... I had the "AHA!" okay, but the details escaped me. My mind
works in two stages: first I create a vague image (in this case of a
long string of 1's and 0's in a block that shifts along something
like a rack-and-pinion; later I will go back and fill it in properly.

 FM> But you've got a good enough background in circuit-based logic
 FM> to figure it out. AND, OR, NOT, etc are gates; SHL & SHR are
 FM> shift registers. 

  Yes... I sort of figured that out, but it seemed too good to be
true. I always think of a shift register as a rack-and-pinion anyway.

Regards,
Bob
 
___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12
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