From: "Marin David Condic, 561.796.8997, M/S 731-96" <condicma@PWFL.COM>
Subject: Re: An interesting quote on Java and C++
Date: 1997/10/08
Date: 1997-10-08T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <97100810022586@psavax.pwfl.com> (raw)
"Robert I. Eachus" <eachus@SPECTRE.MITRE.ORG> writes:
>In article <342AD83E.2C92@gsg.eds.com> "Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz"
><nospam@gsg.eds.com> writes:
>
> AFAIK the only processors around that are not two's complement are...
>
> Ever use floating point? On most hardware today, floating point
>uses a (biased)two's-complement exponent and a sign and magnitude
>mantissa. So if you use the floating point engine to do integer
>arithmetic you get similar semantics to one's complement. (Signed
>zeros and range symmetric around zero.)
>
That's a good point. One of those things you're maybe aware of,
but never made the connection...
I had originally posted a question on the subject of one's
compliment (rather as an aside) because I was wondering why Ada
would feel the need to support potentially obscure hardware at the
possible expense of implementation complexity. One of the examples
was defining standard integers such that they could be supported
on a one's compliment machine.
Granted, this isn't a big deal in terms of implementation
complexity. There may be better examples. But it seems there's a
real dearth of one's compliment architectures out there for which
anyone has a serious interest in porting Ada. Is there any
technical advantage to one's compliment? AFAIK, there's no
significant math advantage and possibly only some small hardware
advantage. Apparently nothing big enough to warrant that becoming
the dominant technology.
MDC
Marin David Condic, Senior Computer Engineer Voice: 561.796.8997
Pratt & Whitney GESP, M/S 731-96, P.O.B. 109600 Fax: 561.796.4669
West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600 Internet: CONDICMA@PWFL.COM
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next reply other threads:[~1997-10-08 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 34+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1997-10-08 0:00 Marin David Condic, 561.796.8997, M/S 731-96 [this message]
1997-10-09 0:00 ` An interesting quote on Java and C++ Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
1997-09-25 0:00 Marin David Condic, 561.796.8997, M/S 731-96
1997-09-25 0:00 ` Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
1997-09-26 0:00 ` Tucker Taft
1997-10-07 0:00 ` Robert I. Eachus
1997-11-19 0:00 ` Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
1997-09-03 0:00 Nasser
1997-09-03 0:00 ` Samuel Mize
[not found] ` <01bcb881$915526a0$d7000064@sim01.amst.co.at>
1997-09-03 0:00 ` Robert Munck
1997-09-05 0:00 ` Joachim Schroeer
1997-09-06 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-09-24 0:00 ` Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
1997-09-08 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1997-09-09 0:00 ` Robert Munck
1997-09-10 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1997-09-10 0:00 ` Stephen Leake
1997-09-11 0:00 ` Roy Grimm
1997-09-12 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1997-09-10 0:00 ` Robert Munck
1997-09-11 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-09-12 0:00 ` Jon S Anthony
1997-09-12 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1997-09-18 0:00 ` Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
1997-09-19 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1997-09-20 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-09-20 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-10-03 0:00 ` Robert I. Eachus
1997-09-20 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-09-22 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1997-09-12 0:00 ` Jon S Anthony
1997-09-11 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-09-12 0:00 ` Jon S Anthony
1997-09-12 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
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