Just out of curiosity how many bits does the IEEE standard require for floating point?
On Oct 17, 2016 3:51 PM, "Leo Broukhis" <[email protected]> wrote: > Dijkstra is above reproach; I try to compare the averages. > > Having eps^2 = eps is cute, but, given that the idea didn't spread to > other pre-IEEE f.p. implementations nor to IEEE (it is possible to > iteratively square a number x with 0 < abs(x) < 1 down to 0, given enough > iterations, denormals or not), it appears that the Electrologica floating > point turned out to be impractical. > > > > On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 11:35 AM, Paul Koning <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> >> > On Oct 17, 2016, at 2:26 PM, Leo Broukhis <[email protected]> wrote: >> > >> > > I think that the same answer applies to your narrower question, >> though I didn't see it mentioned specifically in the documents I've read. >> > >> > That's somewhat comforting; I'd hate to think that the BESM-6 >> programmers were substantially sloppier than their Western colleagues. :) >> >> As you probably know, Dijkstra was a whole lot more disciplined than the >> vast majority of his colleagues. >> >> > > For example, the treatment of underflow and very small numbers in >> Electrologica was novel at the time; Knuth specifically refers to it in a >> > > footnote of Volume 2. The EL-X8 would never turn a non-zero result >> into zero, for example. >> > >> > For most but not all values of "never", I presume. What was the result >> of squaring the number with the least representable absolute value? >> >> The least representable positive value. See the paper by F. E. J. >> Kruseman Aretz that I mentioned. >> >> > >> > > I think IEEE ended up doing the same thing, but that was almost 20 >> years later. >> > >> > Are you're thinking about denormals? >> >> I think so, but I'll be the first to admit that I don't really know >> floating point. >> >> paul >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Simh mailing list > [email protected] > http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh >
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