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Sounds like an overflow in their calculation which caused the -0.
They may still be running ZX Spectrum Cobol.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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Cornelius Henning wrote: I did not even know that zero can be negative.
why computers have positive and negative zero[^]
Once you lose your pride the rest is easy.
In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you. – Buddha
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
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JimmyRopes wrote: why computers have positive and negative zero[^]
Given standard accounting requirements, I very much doubt that Verizon are keeping their accounts in binary floating-point values. Accounting (and banking) operations must be EXACT; it is impossible to represent 0.01 exactly in binary, and therefore binary floating point is not used in accounting packages.
I suspect that their accounting package is written in COBOL and data are stored using the packed-decimal format, which also has positive and negative zeroes.
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: I suspect that their accounting package is written in COBOL and data are stored using the packed-decimal format, which also has positive and negative zeroes.
You are probably right about them using COBOL. I was just responding to the question that the OP didn't know that negative zero existed.
I didn't know that COBOL had a "packed decimal" format, or anything else about COBOL for that matter, and that "packed decimal" format (whatever that is) had a positive and negative zero in that format.
Once you lose your pride the rest is easy.
In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you. – Buddha
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
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JimmyRopes wrote: I didn't know that COBOL had a "packed decimal" format, or anything else about COBOL for that matter
For those poor souls born too late to experience the Joy of COBOL  :
COBOL's Packed Decimal format is a signed-magnitude format that packs two binary coded decimal characters in a single byte, i.e. 42 decimal could be represented as 0x42. This holds for all bytes except the last, which contains 1 decimal place and either C (positive or credit) or D (negative or debit). For example:
-1 would be stored as 0x1D
+1 would be stored as 0x1C
+1234 would be stored as 0x01 0x23 0x4C
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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newton.saber wrote: That is crazy. Hex representing decimal values, before converting from hex.
It actually makes a lot of sense, considering that operations must be performed in decimal, rather than binary:
* Multiplication and division by powers of 10 are trivial
* Numerical fields of arbitrary length may be defined (just terminate the last byte with C or D)
* Extraction of single digits (e.g. for display formatting) is very fast
* Values may be verified at a glance in the core dump (no interactive debuggers in those days...)
All this at a minor increased cost in complexity and storage requirements.
Our predecessors may have worked on (by our standards) underpowered processors with primitive tools, but never assume that they were stupid!
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: Our predecessors may have worked on (by our standards) underpowered processors with primitive tools, but never assume that they were stupid!
That's a very good point, actually.
It's just so odd to use 0xZZ where ZZ is a digit and then to just use those digits basically like strings. Just feels odd since most modern languages see 0x as indicating the value that follows will be a hex value. If they had used something lik cbZZ cbZZ I could've almost accepted it more easily. But again, I have the benefit of looking back on history.
But it's a lot more fun to act like there is no history and just poke fun at the way they designed the solution.
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newton.saber wrote: But it's a lot more fun to act like there is no history and just poke fun at the way they designed the solution
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
-- George Santayana
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: For those poor souls born too late to experience the Joy of COBOL
I wasn't born too late but I successfully avoided COBOL. I coded in IBM Assembler back in the day.
Once you lose your pride the rest is easy.
In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you. – Buddha
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
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JimmyRopes wrote: I coded in IBM Assembler back in the day
Ah, yes. Those were the days...
I learnt IBM System/360 assembly language in University, but never had occasion to use it after graduation (I still have the IBM System/360 Assembly Language card, and Struble's book on the language at home). However, I did write quite a lot of code in 8086 & 80286 assembly language.
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: I still have the IBM System/360 Assembly Language card
If my memory serves me correctly, and it probably doesn't since it was so long ago, that was a green reference card. The 360 was what I started out coding for in the early 1970's.
Later the 370 reference card, and subsequently a booklet, was yellow.
Once you lose your pride the rest is easy.
In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you. – Buddha
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
modified 27-Feb-15 4:26am.
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I started programming assembly language at University in 1981, and the colour of my reference card (for the System 370) is yellow.
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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I didn't know the formatter formatted the formats for formatting formats either 
My blog[ ^]
public class SanderRossel : Lazy<Person>
{
public void DoWork()
{
throw new NotSupportedException();
}
}
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: Given standard accounting requirements, I very much doubt that Verizon are keeping their accounts in binary floating-point values
Valid point.
But then the invoice wasn't a direct view into a database either but rather a processed piece of something (paper or email) that was generated from a process, very likely involving a number of steps.
And certainly something in one of those steps decided to put a minus sign there.
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DON'T PAY IT!!!
veni bibi saltavi
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Ask them to send you a check for +0 dollars
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How much will the postage cost?
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Had a bill from the dentist for $0.
Followed by 2nd notice, 3rd notice, etc., each with late fees accruing because we didn't pay the $0.
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Although that doesn't sound like a very pleasant experience, that's nothing compared to what I had to endure for over six months with our leading Telco. I signed up for a phone plan, years ago, but when the phone arrived, it was the wrong phone, and when I phoned them to get them to send the right one, I then found out they put me on the wrong plan! But that's not all of it...
They kept making mistakes over the phone, and putting me on hold. After a while, they came back and said that I should have been declined, because the particular service I was signing up for was exclusive to existing customers only - not new customers. And since I had only just received my phone - I had never used it to make calls, and since they told me I was able to sign up for that particular service and did so, and since I never used the service - common sense and logic proves that I owe them nothing. I sent the phone back, and they told me they would cancel the service, and that would be that.
Weeks go by...
I get a letter in the mail.
Those idiots sent me a bill of $0.02. Yep. That's right. 2 cents. I phoned them and explained that the service was canceled due to their incompetence and that I had not used the service, so they have no right to charge me anything but they simply were not able to understand that. I told them that I couldn't even pay them 2 cents because in Australia, we stopped producing 1 and 2 cent coins decades ago! They still insisted that I pay them 2 cents.
I hung up the phone (after yelling at them).
Weeks go by...
I get a letter in the mail.
It's from a Debt Collection agency, threatening to take me to court for 2 cents.
Not only was I extremely angry, but after reading it again and showing it to my parents, I just couldn't stop laughing at how stupid some people really are.
Not only do they have absolutely zero legal or moral basis for charging me anything at all - they were asking me to do something that was just not even possible to do - and - they spent more money threatening me with legal action than what the actual "debt" was worth! IDIOTS!
Anyway, it took over six months to get this stuff sorted out. I still have a copy of the paper here. I should frame it someday. Put it up on my wall.
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Put a copy on Facebook for everyone to see!
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Lol, I don't even use Facebook anymore. I kinda got sick of people equating facebook = friendship. I think I'd rather put it on Twitter maybe.
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The bigger these large corporations grow, the more they act like government bureaucrats! 
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Yep lol. It's a little disheartening.
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