OpenEuphoria

Re: Floating Point Numbers

• Posted by Kat <gertie at ZEBRA.NET> Mar 21, 2000
• 404 views

----- Original Message -----
From: "Everett Williams" <rett at GVTC.COM>
To: <EUPHORIA at LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 9:11 AM
Subject: Re: Floating Point Numbers

> Decimal math libraries are not specialist libraries. For most of business
use
> and most ordinary mathematics, floating point is the specialist system.
The
> fact that tech-heads have created an upside down world in which the only
> optimized math hardware that we have is floating point is just that,
upside-
> down.

Hey hey hey,, the 74181 and 10581 don't even know what a floating point is,
and they predate the 8087! The 10287 has no relation to the 80287, and i am
fairly sure it predates the 8087 too. All those are faster than the 8087
ever was, the 74181 coming in "F" and "S" versions, and the 10581 and 10287
being ECL. The hardware existed/exists , it's just that we don't use it.
Last time i researched math hardware addons for the intel x86 motherbds,
there was a dedicated math card that was software configureable on-the-fly
to some extent,, but that was 5yrs ago, and the card was more expensive than
the rest of the puter. The problem with hardware acceptance is that it takes
software to interface it to humans, and the humans haveto want it before it
becomes commercially viable.

> >The only solution is to use integers only. For an assignment we had to
take an order an
> >calculate the cost. The floating point calculations were wrong. The costs
were in dollars and
> >cents. As it is a fixed position decimal I represented the prices in
cents. When I dealt with it, I
> >dealt with it in cents. I out-putted it as dollars and cents. This meant
it was accurate and the
> >user was not confused by incorrect results or prices in cents.
> >-------------------------
>
> A binary library for handling of decimal integer calculations would
certainly
> improve the accuracy of any business math in Euphoria. Of course, that
> would require some agreement on representation of fractional numbers as
> something other than floats.

Well, if you are doing business math, shouldn't we recognize that not
everyone uses dollars and cents?

Kat