Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!ginosko!xanth!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!meissner From: meissner@dg-rtp.dg.com (Michael Meissner) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: IEEE floating point format Message-ID: <389@xyzzy.UUCP> Date: 18 Aug 89 15:52:16 GMT References: <2170002@hpldsla.HP.COM> <9697@alice.UUCP> <3554@buengc.BU.EDU> <9725@alice.UUCP> <3591@buengc.BU.EDU> Sender: usenet@xyzzy.UUCP Reply-To: meissner@bert.dg.com (Michael Meissner) Organization: Data General (Languages @ Research Triangle Park, NC.) Lines: 17 In article <3591@buengc.BU.EDU> bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton) writes: | Next question: do C compilers (math libraries, I expect I should mean) | on IEEE-FP-implementing machines generally limit doubles to normalized | numbers, or do they blithely allow precision to waft away in the name | of a slight increase in the number-range? | | I expect the answer is "the compiler has nothing to do with it", so the | next question would be, are there machines that don't permit the loss | of precision without specific orders to do so? The current versions of the Motorola 88000 trap to the kernel to handle denormalized numbers. Some early versions of the kernel just stuff a zero where the denormalized number was. -- Michael Meissner, Data General. Uucp: ...!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!meissner If compiles were much Internet: meissner@dg-rtp.DG.COM faster, when would we Old Internet: meissner%dg-rtp.DG.COM@relay.cs.net have time for netnews?