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Newsgroups: comp.compression
Subject: Re: Program for Calculating PI
Message-ID: <5296@ns-mx.uiowa.edu>
From: drenze@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu (Douglas Renze)
Date: 5 Apr 91 13:30:10 GMT
Reply-To: drenze@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu (Douglas Renze)
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References: <4299@ryn.mro4.dec.com>
Organization: U of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
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In article <4299@ryn.mro4.dec.com> jroth@allvax.enet.dec.com (Jim Roth) writes:
>
>In article <1991Apr4.150053.29873@linus.mitre.org>, bs@gauss.mitre.org (Robert D. Silverman) writes...
>
>>WHAT IS SO * SPECIAL ABOUT COMPUTING PI AS OPPOSED TO SOME OTHER NUMBER???
>
>    "I am ashamed to tell you how man digits I carried in the computation,
>     having no other business at the time"
>
>     - I. Newton, quoted in "A History of PI"

Well, when I was a kid, I found one really great use for computing pi.  I'd go
into the local computer stores (apple dealers & radio shack, especially) and 
type a simple program for computing pi into any computer that was booted up with
basic at the time.  I usually tried to compute it to several million decimal
places, though.  After a bit, the computers would start to run out of memory and
crash.

It's fun to watch computer salespeople who know nothing about their products try
to cope as their "wonderful systems" begin to crash as they're making their 
sales pitch.


Peace,

Doug.

PS, OK, OK, so I was a nasty little SOB. ;)