Re: "The Best Programming Language for the End of the World"

On 11/04/2025 11:39 pm, sjack wrote:

dxf <dxforth@gmail.com> wrote:

>
With REPRESENT we're dealing with full-precision numbers being displayed
in lesser precision.  Would 'significant digits plus one' even apply?
>

Unsure what is meant by "full-precision numbers" so the following
reasoning my be off in that respect:
 
Floating-point has _potential_ to express a number with _maximum_ of u
significant digits plus one rounded digit.  However, in application a
result may have less than the maximum potential significant digits and
should be returned (displayed) with all digits _after the first
non-significant digit_ chopped (or padded with zero's).
 
For sure I'm no authority on floating-point numbers. The only thing
I know is what I recall from remedial math in the olden days of light
that one wants a result of u significant digits plus the one rounded
digit. Such form of number is then useful for other floating-point
calculations.

I recall IEEE-754 talking about 'correctly rounded' numbers when
converting to external representation.  This is likely to have
been a factor in Intel's decision to use 80-bits internally.