Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Killer Micro II
Message-ID: <2471@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 28 Aug 90 18:22:16 GMT
References: <527@llnl.LLNL.GOV> <603@array.UUCP> <2482@l.cc.purdue.edu> <MCCALPIN.90Aug28121912@pereland.cms.udel.edu>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center, Schenectady NY
Lines: 16

In article <MCCALPIN.90Aug28121912@pereland.cms.udel.edu> mccalpin@perelandra.cms.udel.edu (John D. McCalpin) writes:

| More seriously, I keep on hearing rumours from IBM that they want to
| know if us users want 128-bit floating-point support on the RISC
| system/6000 machines.  Apparently the combined adder/multiplier makes
| 128-bit add/subtract/multiply operations only about 4 times as costly
| as 64-bit operations.  I would definitely like to play with it, but
| I do not consider it a high-priority item....

  I hear from the applications support people that few of our Cray users
are doing 128 bit. It does get used, but more as a reflection of
problems with the N.A. than because the input or output data are
significant to that extent.
-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
    VMS is a text-only adventure game. If you win you can use unix.