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Or at least they should.

Sure it does make sense it's goverment work.

It was designed with a couple hundred IBM mainframes, and a custom software package built on top of it.

What got ordered by the lowest bidder was a couple of thousand desktops running windows and a modified version of Turbo tax 97.


Okay okay it was a joke, but that in a nut shell is how our goverment does things.

>>Sure it does make sense it's goverment work.
>It was designed with a couple hundred IBM mainframes, and a custom software package built on top of it.

What is more important is that the US Government is one of the oldest and biggest consumers of IT.
My understanding is that you really need digital archeology to grasp all the ancient cruft rolling around in there.
That's why, every few years or so, you read about a several million dollar renovation project going TU[1] there.
I find the story completely near-fetched.

[1]tits up

might be a simple 32bit problem; ie. the limit is either $ 2 or 4 billion depending on wether they use signed or unsigned ints (or 100 times less if they actually bother to count cents)

upgrading all records to 64bit would waste too much memory, a hybrid system would be too complex due to data alignment... sounds credible

Don't know if it's true anymore, but at one point the IRS was using 36-bit machines in some areas.

Don't know if it's true anymore, but at one point the IRS was using 36-bit machines in some areas.

That would take you to 34 or 68 billion dollars, depending on signedness. Might still not be enough for Bill (or Donald Trump).

Three points:

1. A 32bit (or any other word size) machine can perform math across multiple words - e.g. 64bit, 128bit, etc... You would use software all the time that uses double-precision floating-point numbers, which are typically 64bit.
2. Calculations can be performed in software for greater precision and accuracy.
3. You neglected the fact that these calculations should not be performed as simple integers, but instead as either high-precision floating point numbers or as in integers that are temporarily scaled higher (e.g. by 1000).

Three points

You are right in all three points of course, except for the idea of using floating-point numbers perhaps.

But who knows when that tax software was developed and what they were thinking. Perhaps they thought a 36-bit integer, perhaps scaled by cents, should be enough for anyone, ever.

Edited 2006-02-02 07:20

Don't know if it's true anymore, but at one point the IRS was using 36-bit machines in some areas.


Every Intel x86 CPU that is PAE enabled uses 36bit physical addressing. GPR's are 32bit and FP registers are 80bit.

Just a little bit of dorkieness.

It doesn't make any sense to me that the IRS would have computers incapable of handling anyone's taxes. For something as central to their operation as processing tax returns, you would think that they would have over-designed the system responsible.

I can't help asking myself whether the hardware or software is responsible (or maybe even both). I can't imagine the hardware being at fault, but I also can't imagine them creating specialized software that is used for one person only. The only difference I could imagine with software would be a data-entry interface, but why wouldn't Bill e-file?

This is even funnier than the article itself Well done.

Of all the articles that have popped up on this, why did you link to the Inquirer? Even among tech tabloids, they're pretty lousy. :-(

I didn't link to this article specifically (Andrew did), but I'll reply anyway. You just got to learn to take the Inq for what they are: a non-serious website with a biting sense of humour. Learn to appreciate their humour, and you'll come to like the Inq.

Or you could come to terms with that and not link to them .
It's easier for you to come to terms than all of us!

Seriously though, I'm making my suggestion here that you guys shouldn't link to sites which editorialize already editorialized news... At least not as the main article link.

It's not really a big deal. It's more a problem when you link to the register (because then I have to assume the article is totally fallacious).

Agreed. It is uber-bs. Another revolution hey, better watch that kinda talk, we'll have Homeland Security on us in a flash. =) ROFL!

You think campaign donations are what kept the government from punishing Microsoft? Are you sure it wasn't the fact that properly punishing them would've meant hurting one of the largest companies in the US during a recession?

which is why it's good that the EU aren't scared to go after The Gates.

and as far as the thread goes, this is what bill was quoted as having said, it doesn't make it gospel, mor likely he's just being smug about how much money he has.

f--k no! Flat tax is crap, poor people would suffer so f--king bad.