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Path: utzoo!watmath!wjafyfe
From: wjafyfe@watmath.UUCP (Andy Fyfe)
Newsgroups: net.arch,net.decus,net.micro
Subject: Re: DEC PRO350 Floating Point
Message-ID: <11961@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 14-Mar-85 23:46:29 EST
Article-I.D.: watmath.11961
Posted: Thu Mar 14 23:46:29 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 15-Mar-85 05:15:37 EST
References: <2810@ncsu.UUCP> <3100001@rna.UUCP>
Reply-To: wjafyfe@watmath.UUCP (Andy Fyfe)
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 9
Xref: watmath net.arch:983 net.decus:93 net.micro:9699
Summary: 

There are a number of DEC PRO 350s around the campus here.  A number of
them are used by the applied math department for various numerical things
(with many of the programs written in basic).  We found out that the
basic square root function is hopelessly inaccurate -- no more than
about 3 significant digits.  Raising to the power .5 is much better.
Is this the fault of basic, or the floating point hardware?

--Andy Fyfe		...!{decvax, allegra, ihnp4, et. al}!watmath!wjafyfe
			wjafyfe@waterloo.csnet