On a proposed floating-point standard

ABSTRACT

A standard for binary floating-point arithmetic is being proposed and there is a very real possibility that it will be adopted by many manufacturers and implemented on a wide range of computers. This development matters to all of us concerned with numerical software. One of the principal motivations for the standard is to distribute more evenly the burden of portability between hardware and software. At present, any program intended to be portable must be designed for a mythical computer that enjoys no capability not supported by every computer on which the program will be run. That mythical computer is so much grubbier than almost any real computer that a portable program will frequently be denigrated as "suboptimal" and then supplanted by another program supposedly "optimal" for the real computer in question but often inferior in critical respects like reliability. A standard --- almost any reasonable standard --- will surely improve the situation. A standard environment for numerical programs will promote fair comparisons and sharing of numerical codes, thereby lowering costs and prices. Furthermore, we have chosen repeatedly to enrich that environment in order that applications programs be simpler and more reliable. Thus will the onus of portability be shared among hardware manufacturers and software producers.

REFERENCES

• 1: Palmer, J. (1977) "The INTEL Standard for Floating-Point Arithmetic," Proc. COMPSAC, 107--112.
• 2: Jerome Coonen , William Kahan , John Palmer , Tom Pittman , David Stevenson, A proposed standard for binary floating point arthmetic, ACM SIGNUM Newsletter, v.14 n.si-2, p.4-12, October 1979 [doi>10.1145/1057520.1057521]
• 3: Coonen, J. (1979), "Specifications for a Proposed Standard for Floating-Point Arithmetic," Draft submitted to IEEE Microprocessor Floating-Point Standards Committee, August 26.
• 4: Kahan, W. (1966), "7094-II System Support for Numerical Analysis," SHARE Secretarial Distribution SSD-159, item C4537.
• 5: Brent, R. (1973), "On the Precision Attainable with Various Floating-Point Number Systems," IEEE Trans. Computers, Vol. C-22, No. 6, 601--607.
• 6: Yohe, J. (1973), "Roundings in Floating-Point Arithmetic," IEEE Trans. Computers, Vol. C-22, No. 6, 577--586.
• 7: Moore, R. E. (1966), Interval Analysis, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
• 8: Kahan, W. (1968), "A More Complete Interval Arithmetic," Lecture Notes for a course at University of Michigan, June 17-21.
• 9: Dekker, T. J. (1971), "A Floating-Point Technique for Extending the Available Precision," Numerische Mathematik, Vol. 18, 224--242.