This is a FAQ and is dealt with in perlfaq4 - Data Manipulation, specifically

perldoc -q decimals
[download]

A.K.A. "Why am I getting long decimals (eg, 19.9499999999999) instead of the numbers I should be getting (eg, 19.95)?"

The problem has nothing to do with the Intel Pentium issue.

-- Regards,
Helgi Briem
helgi AT decode DOT is