Leopold Toetsch wrote: > > Anyway: > - are there platforms with quad precision floats out there?
Several documents refer to quad precision hardware, but I can't find direct references to any. > - or should 12 byte long doubles get converted to 8 byte IEEE doubles. Perhaps the following quote from William Kahan would be appropriate: > What Good are Extended Floating-Point Formats? > > This is more of a marketing question than mathematical, > and although the reasoning entails some mathematics beyond > the acquaintance of most marketing personnel, they will > all appreciate the conclusions, namely that ... > > o Were the wages of sin collected only by the sinners, > extended formats could be optional > o Extended formats are required more to support a mass > market than for numerical experts The best single resource I've found yet is: http://www.validlab.com/754R/ It has faithful representations of all the relevant IEEE standards, meeting minutes, and proposals. -- Garrett Goebel IS Development Specialist ScriptPro Direct: 913.403.5261 5828 Reeds Road Main: 913.384.1008 Mission, KS 66202 Fax: 913.384.2180 www.scriptpro.com [EMAIL PROTECTED]
