Re: floating-point abuse in 2.1.113
H. Peter Anvin (hpa@transmeta.com)
Thu, 6 Aug 1998 01:40:55 -0700 (PDT)
> >
> > > I don't think this is a big problem anymore with mostly all CPUs supporting
> > > standard IEEE floating point arithmetic. Is there any Linux target that has
> > > non-IEEE FP? I doubt it.
> >
> > VAX. Also, for example i386 has 80-bit floating point, which no other
> > system have, and I think Alpha and Sparc64 have 128-bit.
>
> Sparc32 has 128-bit as well. But both 80-bit and 128-bit floating point are
> IEEE as well... So a generic emulator could help.
>
Only it is arbitrary-precision, which is very slow (it may or may not
matter, of course.) IEEE fp is a Good Thing, finally people are doing
at least roughly the same thing with respect to floating point.
-hpa
[Now, if IEEE could only get off their xenophobic streak they've
gotten on lately...]
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