Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!sun!exodus!exodus-bb!khb From: khb@chiba.Eng.Sun.COM (Keith Bierman fpgroup) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: IEEE arithmetic (Goldberg paper) Message-ID: Date: 12 Jun 91 01:55:38 GMT References: <9106120054.AA19903@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Sender: news@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM Organization: Sun MegaSystems Lines: 26 In-reply-to: jbs@WATSON.IBM.COM's message of 12 Jun 91 00:18:07 GMT In article <9106120054.AA19903@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> jbs@WATSON.IBM.COM writes: instructions into the IEEE standard and they have been implemented in hardware in many machines. Interval arithmetic still hasn't gotten off the ground. How long are we expected to wait until concluding it's not going to fly. Until vendors (other than apple and sun) provide hooks that people can actually use. Had such hooks been part of _any_ language standard, I suspect folks with such interests would have merrily coded up systems. 3. The real problem with interval arithmetic is not that it's slow but that on real applications its error estimates are gener- ally so pessimistic as to be useless. At last, something we agree on! But I confess that I have not used it extensively, so I am prepared to believe that it may have utility I am not personally cognizant of. Interval techniques will have to be deployed in large quantities before it can be counted out of the running, IMHO. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Keith H. Bierman keith.bierman@Sun.COM| khb@chiba.Eng.Sun.COM SMI 2550 Garcia 12-33 | (415 336 2648) Mountain View, CA 94043