Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!convex!texsun!newstop!exodus!exodus-bb!khb From: khb@chiba.Eng.Sun.COM (Keith Bierman fpgroup) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: bizarre instructions Message-ID: Date: 21 Feb 91 18:27:23 GMT References: <9102210042.AA12291@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <2998@charon.cwi.nl> Sender: news@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM Organization: Sun MegaSystems Lines: 18 In-reply-to: dik@cwi.nl's message of 21 Feb 91 11:04:13 GMT In article <2998@charon.cwi.nl> dik@cwi.nl (Dik T. Winter) writes: favorite hand-held calculator. If sin(pi) = 0, the implementation is wrong!) No. Since that is what people expect, many library writers go to special pains to make sure that this case works out "right". Historically, Suns (for example) provided user selectable pi precision (see the Numerical Computation Guide for details) .... this hasn't proved to be very useful because few know or seem to care; but has caused a bit of grief once or twice. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Keith H. Bierman kbierman@Eng.Sun.COM | khb@chiba.Eng.Sun.COM SMI 2550 Garcia 12-33 | (415 336 2648) Mountain View, CA 94043 Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com