From: William A Whitaker <whitaker@erols.com>
Subject: Re: fixed point vs floating point
Date: 1997/11/26
Date: 1997-11-26T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <347BC553.136A@erols.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: gwinn-2511971025020001@dh5055083.res.ray.com
Joe Gwinn wrote:
>
snip
>
> In one recent example, Square Root was taking 60 microseconds on a 50-MHz
> 68060; this should take no more than 2 uS. Where did the time go?
Etc. Same kind of
> story with the transcendental functions, only worse. One needs to read
> the generated assembly code to know what a given compiler is up to.
>
> We only need a few functions, specifically Sine, Cosine, Arc Tangent, and
> Square Root, speed is very much of the essence, and we need only 10e-4 to
> 10e-5 (16-bit) accuracy anyway. So, we will write our own versions of
> these functions, in Ada, C, or even assembly, as determined by performance
> tests.
>
>
>
> As for the polynomial approximations, the bible is to this day is
> "Approximations for Digital Computers"; Cecil Hastings, Jr.; Princeton
> University Press; 1955. This has been a classic since its publication.
> In those days, the computers were small, so the programmers had to be very
> focused on performance. For computation of polynomials in real systems,
> convert the published polynomials into Horner's form. This is discussed
> in many texts on numerical methods. In short, a + bX + cX^2 becomes a +
> X(b+cX), which is faster to compute, and has better numerical properties
> than the standard power-series form.
>
> Joe Gwinn
I remember working hard to get an exponential in 3.7 microseconds, using
a self-generated "Hasty Approximation" (in honor of Hastings who was the
father of them all). This was 30 years ago.
Bill Whitaker
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1997-11-26 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 64+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1997-11-22 0:00 fixed point vs floating point Matthew Heaney
1997-11-22 0:00 ` Tucker Taft
1997-11-22 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-11-22 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1997-11-23 0:00 ` Geert Bosch
1997-11-23 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1997-11-23 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-11-24 0:00 ` Herman Rubin
1997-11-24 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-11-25 0:00 ` Joe Gwinn
1997-11-25 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1997-11-25 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-11-25 0:00 ` Joe Gwinn
1997-11-25 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-11-26 0:00 ` Joe Gwinn
1997-11-26 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-12-01 0:00 ` Joe Gwinn
1997-12-01 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-12-01 0:00 ` Joe Gwinn
1997-12-03 0:00 ` robin
1997-11-26 0:00 ` William A Whitaker [this message]
1997-11-24 0:00 ` Geert Bosch
1997-11-23 0:00 ` Tom Moran
1997-11-25 0:00 ` John A. Limpert
1997-11-25 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-11-25 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-11-24 0:00 ` Vince Del Vecchio
1997-11-24 0:00 ` Vince Del Vecchio
1997-12-03 0:00 ` robin
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2011-09-29 10:25 RasikaSrinivasan@gmail.com
2011-09-29 10:49 ` AdaMagica
2011-09-29 13:38 ` Martin
2011-09-30 10:17 ` Stephen Leake
2011-09-30 16:25 ` tmoran
2011-09-30 16:52 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2011-10-01 11:09 ` Stephen Leake
2011-09-30 19:26 ` tmoran
2011-09-30 22:31 ` tmoran
2011-10-01 13:37 ` RasikaSrinivasan@gmail.com
2011-10-02 14:19 ` Stephen Leake
1997-12-02 0:00 Robert Dewar
1997-12-02 0:00 ` Joe Gwinn
1997-12-02 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-12-02 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1997-12-03 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-12-03 0:00 ` Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
1997-12-03 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1997-12-04 0:00 ` Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
1997-12-04 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-12-03 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-12-03 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-12-03 0:00 ` robin
1997-12-03 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-12-02 0:00 ` Ken Garlington
1997-12-03 0:00 ` Joe Gwinn
1997-12-04 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-12-04 0:00 ` Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
1997-12-03 0:00 ` robin
1997-11-28 0:00 tmoran
1997-11-28 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-11-27 0:00 tmoran
1997-11-27 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-11-29 0:00 ` Tarjei T. Jensen
[not found] <9711221603.AA03295@nile.gnat.com>
1997-11-22 0:00 ` Ken Garlington
replies disabled
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox