extend calculation precision

[Peter_C]

not an immediate need of mine, but a continuing interest
On sas-L a poster is enguiring about maintaining precision in calculations having values like 2.56E28.
On Tue, 3 Nov 2009 11:32:45 -0800, newton wrote:

>I need to store a variable with numeric inputs greater than 8 bytes.
>The output I see via proc print will give me scientific format as, for
>example, 2.56E28.
>I have tried

Of course storage of wide numbers is no problem for text strings, but base SAS arithmetic won't support 28 digit precison. Is this precision in calculation offered by some other parts of the languages of SAS ? (tspl vaguely came to mind)