> Is anyone bothered by the Excel 95-97 (if not earlier) convention of
> having -9^2 return 81? Most languages and math books would give -81, as that
> leading minus sign is considered a unary operator whose precedence is lower
> than exponentiation.
>  
> Does anyone know if Excel has ALWAYS worked this way?
>  
> Can anyone cite OTHER software or hardware which works this way?
>

It has worked this way since at least Excel 4. I don't have earlier versions 
installed, but have worked with all versions since Excel 1 on the Mac and 
believe it has always worked this way. The Excel 97 help screen makes the 
issue clear with the following order of precedence:

: (colon), (comma)  (single space)	Reference operators
–	Negation (as in –1)
%	Percent
^	Exponentiation
* and /	Multiplication and division
+ and – 	Addition and subtraction
&	Connects two strings of text (concatenation)
=  <  >  <=  >=  <>	Comparison

If this were the only inconsistency between Excel and the Universal Design 
Philosophy, I would be more than ecstatic,

John Green - Excel MVP
Sydney
Australia