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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary-coded_decimal#Packed_BC...

Earlier than the 60s. Had to work on a system in the 90s to “transpile” IBM minicomputer code to C.

Useful for accounting since what you see is what you get as far as cents and other decimals go. 1/5, and thus 1/10, can only be approximated in floating point.

Not that I’m defending MySQL



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