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From: BRYAN@SU-SIERRA.ARPA (Doug Bryan)
Newsgroups: net.lang.ada
Subject: floating point number radix
Message-ID: <8510190642.AA26485@UCB-VAX>
Date: Fri, 18-Oct-85 22:39:57 EDT
Article-I.D.: UCB-VAX.8510190642.AA26485
Posted: Fri Oct 18 22:39:57 1985
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We have a question for all you model number gurus out there:

[3.5.7(6)]
The reference manual states that the minimum number of binary digits, B,
required after the point in the binary mantissa of a floating point
number is...

	ceiling (D * ln(10)/ln(2) + 1.0)

where D is the minimal number of decimal digits in the decimal mantissa.

Consider D = 3...

	ceiling (3 * ln(10)/ln(2) + 1.0) = ceiling (10.9657) = 11

But... is not 10 binary digits sufficient to represent 3 decimal digits?
		2**(-10) < 10**(-3)
We think the "+ 1.0" in the above expression can be removed. 

doug bryan and geoff mendal

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