Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site faron.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!whuxl!whuxlm!akgua!gatech!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!decvax!linus!faron!bs
From: bs@faron.UUCP (Robert D. Silverman)
Newsgroups: net.math
Subject: How Computers handle Floating Point is not Mathematics
Message-ID: <427@faron.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 12-Jan-86 11:39:29 EST
Article-I.D.: faron.427
Posted: Sun Jan 12 11:39:29 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 17-Jan-86 01:03:14 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: The MITRE Coporation, Bedford, MA
Lines: 21

dgh@sun.uucp writes:
 
The following questions have been raised in a posting by S. Issakow.
I am responding based on my experience on the IEEE P754 and P854 committees.
IEEE arithmetic is specified in ANSI/IEEE Standard 754-1985.

>		double a, b, c;
>		  [assignment to b and c] 
>		c = a / b;
>
>	1) If `a' == 1.0 and `b' == 0.0 , should the divide-by-zero cause 
 

etc. etc. ad nauseum.

While algorithms for doing floating point arithmetic may be of interest
to mathematicians this above stuff has very little to do with mathematics.
It involves computer issues only. Please keep this sort of thing out of
net.math. By the way... are you sure you cross posted it to enough groups???
 
Bob Silverman