Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!munnari.oz.au!goanna!ok
From: ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: 386 Clones [really: IEEE floating point & various approaches; long]
Message-ID: <4174@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au>
Date: 1 Nov 90 07:35:28 GMT
References: <1990Oct26.015244.586@amd.com> <8464@scolex.sco.COM> <42597@mips.mips.COM>
Organization: Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia
Lines: 15

In article <42597@mips.mips.COM>, mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) writes:
> Note, also, that this somewhat applies to the IBM RS/6000 series.
> Legally, but unlike almost all other IEEE FP implementations,
> FP OPERATIONS DO NOT NORMALLY TRAP ON EXCEPTION CONDITIONS;
> i.e., SIGFPE doesn't normally do anything.

Am I missing something?  Any floating-point system where the *default*
mode of operation is to generate traps does *NOT* in that mode conform
to the IEEE 754 standard.  If you _want_ traps, then you have to call
some system-specific extension to get them.  So the complaint appears
to be that the RS/6000 (like the Sun implementations of floating point)
conforms to the letter of the standard.
-- 
The problem about real life is that moving one's knight to QB3
may always be replied to with a lob across the net.  --Alasdair Macintyre.