It varies from 16 bits to 256 bits. Go to the wikipedia.org article on "IEEE floating point" for an overview.
On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 3:30 PM, Ray Jewhurst <raywjewhu...@gmail.com> wrote: > Just out of curiosity how many bits does the IEEE standard require for > floating point? > > On Oct 17, 2016 3:51 PM, "Leo Broukhis" <l...@mailcom.com> 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 <paulkon...@comcast.net> >> wrote: >> >>> >>> > On Oct 17, 2016, at 2:26 PM, Leo Broukhis <l...@mailcom.com> 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 >> Simh@trailing-edge.com >> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh >> > > _______________________________________________ > Simh mailing list > Simh@trailing-edge.com > http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh >
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