From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: *** X-Spam-Status: No, score=3.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, RATWARE_MS_HASH,RATWARE_OUTLOOK_NONAME autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,a48e5b99425d742a X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "Nick Roberts" Subject: Re: Papers on the Ariane-5 crash and Design by Contract Date: 1997/03/25 Message-ID: <01bc38b5$93e00760$57f882c1@xhv46.dial.pipex.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 228091167 References: <97032020033927@psavax.pwfl.com> Organization: UUNet PIPEX server (post doesn't reflect views of UUNet PIPEX) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-03-25T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Marin David Condic, 561.796.8997, M/S 731-93 wrote in article <97032020033927@psavax.pwfl.com>... > As for overflow situations - you're right that the use of floating > point usually means more than enough resolution so you never see > it overflow. It might have saved the Ariane. What might also have > saved them would be if the arithmetic on the machine had saturated > instead of causing an interrupt. (Disable the interrupt & let the > hardware saturate or enable the interrupt & put your own > saturation software in there.) Floating point usually saturates > the way you want it to from hardware, but fixed usually doesn't. > I would be very grateful if you (or someone) would explain the term 'saturation' in this context. I'm not accusing you of incorrect usage of a technical term, merely myself of ignorance. I would be very interested. Nick.