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From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.arch
Subject: Re: Floating point performance
Message-ID: <1900@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 27-Oct-86 17:45:16 EST
Article-I.D.: mmintl.1900
Posted: Mon Oct 27 17:45:16 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 3-Nov-86 19:41:16 EST
References: <340@euroies.UUCP> <1989@videovax.UUCP> <722@mips.UUCP> <6028@ut-sally.UUCP> <253@BMS-AT.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 13

In article <253@BMS-AT.UUCP> stuart@BMS-AT.UUCP writes:
>For problems unsuited to floating point, e.g. accounting, yes the
>floating point hardware gets in the way.  For accounting one should
>use large integers: 48 bits is plenty in practice and no special hardware
>is needed.

48 bits is not always adequate.  One sometimes has to perform operations
of the form a*(b/c), rounded to the nearest penny (integer).  Doing this
with integer arithmethic requires intermediate results with double the
precision of the final results.  With floating point, this is not necessary.

Frank Adams                           ihnp4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
Multimate International    52 Oakland Ave North    E. Hartford, CT 06108