*BSD News Article 39798


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From: peter@bonkers.taronga.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Interested in PowerPC for Linux / FreeBSD / NetBSD?
Followup-To: comp.sys.powerpc,comp.sys.intel
Organization: Taronga Park BBS
Message-ID: <D151u6.3Ao@bonkers.taronga.com>
References: <3cit0i$mjf@tut.msstate.edu> <3cphs0$l6e@ddi2.digital.net> <stephenkD0vyyn.1GG@netcom.com> <D12MGt.1L9@tyrell.net>
Date: Wed, 21 Dec 1994 02:06:06 GMT
Lines: 7

In article <D12MGt.1L9@tyrell.net>, John A. Matzen <john@tyrell.net> wrote:
>If a bank is using the FPU to do numerical calculations, they could be loosing
>hundreds of pennies every day due to rounding errors.  It doesn't matter
>how many digits of precision the FPU is using.

Not so. If IEEE arithmetic is being used correctly you can perform fast
precise artithmetic to a surprising number of decimal places in it.