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Arbitrary-precision arithmetic is considerably slower than arithmetic using numbers that fit entirely within processor registers, since the latter are usually implemented in [[Arithmetic logic unit|hardware arithmetic]] whereas the former must be implemented in software. Even if the [[computer]] lacks hardware for certain operations (such as integer division, or all floating-point operations) and software is provided instead, it will use number sizes closely related to the available hardware registers: one or two words only and definitely not N words. There are exceptions, as certain ''[[variable word length machine|variable word length]]'' machines of the 1950s and 1960s, notably the [[IBM 1620]], [[IBM 1401]] and the Honeywell ''Liberator'' series, could manipulate numbers bound only by available storage, with an extra bit that delimited the value.
Numbers can be stored in a [[fixed-point arithmetic|fixed-point]] format, or in a [[floating-point]] format as a [[significand]] multiplied by an arbitrary exponent. However, since division almost immediately introduces infinitely repeating sequences of digits (such as 4/7 in decimal, or 1/10 in binary), should this possibility arise then either the representation would be truncated at some satisfactory size or else rational numbers would be used: a large integer for the [[numerator]] and for the [[denominator]]. But even with the [[greatest common divisor]] divided out, arithmetic with rational numbers can become unwieldy very
The size of arbitrary-precision numbers is limited in practice by the total storage available, the variables used to index the digit strings, and computation time. A 32-bit operating system may limit available storage to less than 4 GB.<!-- could make thrashing statement for numbers larger than physical RAM --> A programming language using 32-bit integers can only index 4 GB. If multiplication is done with an {{math|[[Big O notation|O]](''N''<sup>2</sup>)}} algorithm, it would take on [[Order of approximation|the order of]] {{math|10<sup>12</sup>}} steps to multiply two one-million word numbers.
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