Binary-coded Decimal - Application

Application

The BIOS in many personal computers stores the date and time in BCD because the MC6818 real-time clock chip used in the original IBM PC AT motherboard provided the time encoded in BCD. This form is easily converted into ASCII for display.

The Atari 8-bit family of computers used BCD to implement floating-point algorithms. The MOS 6502 processor used has a BCD mode that affects the addition and subtraction instructions.

Early models of the PlayStation 3 store the date and time in BCD. This led to a worldwide outage of the console on 1 March 2010. The last two digits of the year stored as BCD were misinterpreted as 16 causing a paradox in the unit's date, rendering most functionalities inoperable.

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Famous quotes containing the word application:

    Preaching is the expression of the moral sentiment in application to the duties of life.
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