Larry Hastings <la...@hastings.org> added the comment:

Here's a better idea: we add a new IEEE 754-2008 quad-precision float type.  
The IEEE 754-2008 quad precision float has 1 sign bit, 15 bits of exponent, and 
112 bits of mantissa, so it should have enough precision to last utime until 
humanity transforms itself into a single angelic being of pure light and energy.

GCC has had __float128 since 4.3, Clang has __float128 now too, Intel's 
compiler has _Quad.  It looks like Visual C++ doesn't support it yet--it does 
support a funny 80-bit float but I don't think Python wants to go there.

I realize a new float type would be a major undertaking, but it seems to me 
that that's really the right way to do it.  Nobody would have to change their 
code, and it'd behave like the existing float.  It'd be just like 2.x, with 
"int" and "long"!

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Python tracker <rep...@bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue11457>
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