Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!voder!pyramid!wendyt
From: wendyt@pyrps5 (Wendy Thrash)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: IEEE 754 vs. 854 (floating-point arithmetic)
Keywords: floating-point exceptions
Message-ID: <72135@pyramid.pyramid.com>
Date: 30 May 89 20:12:40 GMT
Sender: daemon@pyramid.pyramid.com
Reply-To: wendyt@pyrps5.pyramid.com (Wendy Thrash)
Organization: Pyramid Technology Corp., Mountain View, CA
Lines: 14

In article <6@pzbaum.uucp> jimv@pzbaum.UUCP (Jim Valerio) writes:
>I understand that there is a review of IEEE 754 coming up in the next few
>years.  Personally, I'm looking forward to arguing for a number of modest
>changes, including:
>   (1)	Replace subnormal/denormal numbers by a single value (call it epsilon
>	or infinitesimal), and define arithmetic underflow in terms of this
>	limiting value.

Without going into the merits of Jim's suggestion, I'd like to point out
that it could hardly be considered to be a _modest_ change.

Whether it would enhance 754 (by making hardware easier to build) or cripple
it (by removing a useful feature) (and, if both, which is more important)
is something that will certainly be debated at length during the review.