[open-cobol-list] Support for Big Numbers

[Roger While]

> The ANSI/ISO 2002 COBOL Standard *also* requires that a conforming COBOL
> compiler support 31-digit numeric fields (DISPLAY, NATIONAL, BINARY, *and*
> Packed-Decimal USAGEs).

Now is that not just lovely - With PACKED = 16 Bytes.
Seems as though IBM once again got into the decision round.
They missed the original Cobol rounf with C-3 but it seems they are making up.
Note that the next greatest power of 2 for binary is 109.
So this begs the question why not go to
340282366920938463463374607431768211456
= 2 to the poswer 128 ?

So, is there any info regarding PIC definitions to actual
storage as regards this ?
(IBM, MF(Byte storage), etc).

Roger