3 ms·

It is fairly easy to implement N bit arithmetics in 16-bit lisp. Especially if the system provides a Carry-flag, which it seldom does unfortunately. For some s

It is fairly easy to implement N bit arithmetics in 16-bit lisp. Especially if the system provides a Carry-flag, which it seldom does unfortunately. For some stupid reason I had strange ( 10000 . 10000 ) arithmetics, where the big number X was (cons (/ X 10000) (mod X 10000)) and primitives like */10000 helped to use it (multiply and divide with 10000). Ok. The stupid reason was it was aesthetically pleasing. For example the big number 12346789 was (1234 . 6789).

anthk 6y ago
That was common with Forth. Limit? (2^16)-1. If you need something bigger, declare a long number on your own.
- PaulHoule 6y ago
  Many FORTHs were based on 16 bit ints but I knew somebody who wrote a 32-bit FORTH for an 8-bit machine because they needed 32-bit ints.