24 Oct
2011
24 Oct
'11
9:07 a.m.
On Sun, 23 Oct 2011, Chuck Guzis wrote:
I don't care if the radix is 2, 10 or 13. What is
normally termed
"floating point" is a slight misnomer.
Agreed.
What SHOULD we call it? (Something short and [over]simpler than "IEEE
32 bit floating point representation standard")
It's interesting that while some vendors seem to
be intent on
dropping decimal support on CPUs, there are others proposing decimal
co-processors-- and the POWER6 and 7 CPUs have always had decimal
floating point capabilities.
I will admit to sometimes using some of the BCD instructions in the 80x86
family, such as AAM, DAA, etc. 'course, other than my sales tax program,
I usually use them for stuff other than BCD.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com