Xref: utzoo comp.lang.misc:3514 comp.arch:11507 Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!mentor.cc.purdue.edu!l.cc.purdue.edu!cik From: cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc,comp.arch Subject: Re: Numbers (was Re: Fast conversions) Summary: The utility of fixed point Keywords: fixed point integer Message-ID: <1609@l.cc.purdue.edu> Date: 25 Sep 89 12:12:25 GMT References: <832@dms.UUCP> <688@UALTAVM.BITNET> <34993@apple.Apple.COM> Followup-To: comp.lang.misc,comp.arch Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department Lines: 20 In article <34993@apple.Apple.COM>, malcolm@Apple.COM (Malcolm Slaney) writes: > Donald Lindsay writes: > >The military world has always been fond of putting decimal points in > >the middle of binary integers, and calling it "fixed point". .............................. > I would never dream of trying to convince somebody like MIPs to incorporate > fixed point arithmetic into their general purpose machines, but for many > dedicated signal processing processors this is the best way to go. I don't > know how to incorporate this type of number into a programming language but I > have to give the ADA designers at least credit for trying. There are a very large number of situations in which it is necessary to use fixed point, including multiple-precision floating point beyond what is explicitly provided for. -- Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907 Phone: (317)494-6054 hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP)