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From: naras@stat.fsu.edu (B. Narasimhan)
Newsgroups: sci.math,sci.math.symbolic,comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Announcing UBASIC 7.25
Message-ID: <796@stat.fsu.edu>
Date: 1 Feb 90 16:35:58 GMT
Reply-To: naras@stat.fsu.edu (B. Narasimhan)
Organization: Dept. of Statistics, Florida State Univ.
Lines: 59

Announcing UBASIC Version 7.25
------------------------------

UBASIC version 7.25 is now available for public distribution. The previous
version in circulation was 7.20.

To those who aren't familiar with UBASIC, it is a multiprecision package
that runs on IBM PC's. It is written by the Japanese number-theorist  
Dr. Yuji Kida. A review by Prof. Walter Neumann appears in

"Computers and Matematics," May/June 1989, Vol 36, Number 5.

We, at FSU, prefer it over Maple because of its more modern algorithms for
testing primality. Further, it turns in some fantastic times on an ordinary
PC.

***********************************************************************
To receive a copy, just send a mail message to me at
                     naras@stat.fsu.edu
***********************************************************************

The update report follows.

    ---------------------------------------------------------
         UPDATE REPORT for UBASIC 7.25  Jan. 2,1990
    ---------------------------------------------------------
    Warning
    -------
    The parameter passing of UBasic had a weak point(almost
    nearly a BUG!).
    Sample:
        10   A=1:gosub *X(&A):print A:end
        20   *X(&C)
        30   local A
        40   C=2
        50   return
    What wll be the result of 'print A' in the line10?
    The expected result may be '2' but UBasic wil give '1'.
    The reason is that 'local A' in the line30 hides the old
    value of A and restores it to A by 'return' in the line50.
    Thus the value set to A by 'C=2' is canceled when 'return'ed.

    In the current version 7.25, you cannot do like above.
    The program stops at the line 30.

    Bugs
    ----
    A function Factorial gave an illegal value for factorial(0).
    (try this  A=123456789:? factorial(0))

    Advance Announcement
    ------- ------------
    We are now preparing a new version, version 8, which includes
    the arithmetic of the rational numbers, manipulation of texts,
    and etc.  The complete version will be released in April,1990.


-B. Narasimhan
naras@stat.fsu.edu