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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,1d92f00996f9e887,start X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "Marin David Condic, 561.796.8997, M/S 731-96" Subject: Re: An interesting quote on Java and C++ Date: 1997/10/08 Message-ID: <97100810022586@psavax.pwfl.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 278719346 Sender: Ada programming language Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU X-VMS-To: SMTP%"INFO-ADA@VM1.NODAK.EDU" X-VMS-Cc: CONDIC Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-10-08T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: "Robert I. Eachus" writes: >In article <342AD83E.2C92@gsg.eds.com> "Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" > 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 =============================================================================== "Eagles may soar, but a weasle never gets sucked up into a jet engine." ===============================================================================