Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!bfmny0!tneff
From: tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: IEEE arithmetic in C
Message-ID: <15466@bfmny0.UU.NET>
Date: 8 May 90 06:44:09 GMT
References: <4328.263076F2@puddle.fidonet.org> <1990Apr25.162502.5977@utzoo.uucp> <1990Apr26.203555.9810@kfw.COM> <1990Apr27.173218.19870@utzoo.uucp> <24556@weitek.WEITEK.COM> <1990May1.155833.1921@utzoo.uucp>
Reply-To: tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff)
Lines: 9

Actually I'm a little disappointed that vendors (even Intel's own
iC86/286) don't appear to support the IEEE 80-bit real format (a la PL/M
TEMPREAL or assembler 'DT 1.2E+34').  You pick these processors, read
all the lavish documentation talking about their special features, then
they don't let you at them.  I understand how everything has to be
dumbed down and have happy faces painted on it for the glorious new
future of standardization, but sometimes in the trenches I wish these
things were still designed by dweebs so that ugly, dweebish, necessary
jobs were easier to do.