In support of fixed point
Handling this kind of problem was one of the design goals of the RTL/2 language developed at ICI back in the early '70s - as you can imagine it helps to get your numbers right when you're controlling valves, meters, etc in chemical plants and refineries.
RTL/2 has a binary fraction fixed point type as standard which provides an easy route to scaling values that fall within a known range. Combined with explicit rules about how expressions are evaluated (e.g. on when double-length intermediate types are used, or on how to combine different types) it provides the basic tools to manage numerical issues of this sort across a wide range of applications.
Of course you do still need to know what you're doing...
As an aside, the RTL/2 user manual is the only one I've ever come across which introduces floating point numbers and types at the start but waits until over half way through before covering integers.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
