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From: dxf <dxforth@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: "The Best Programming Language for the End of the World"
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2025 14:43:16 +1000
Organization: i2pn2 (i2pn.org)
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On 12/04/2025 1:42 am, mhx wrote:
>> This is likely to have been a factor in Intel's decision to use
>> 80-bits internally.
> 
> Maybe they needed 80 bits to print a binary 64-bit float in BCD
> for COBOL compilers.
> However, one needs a few hundred bits to correctly represent a
> binary 56-bit significand in decimal, so maybe it is only enough
> for single-precision floats?

Who does that?

> For sure, high-quality libraries do not rely on 80-bit extended
> precision for decimal output - I remember even the MASM library
> had special code for that.
> ...

I take no precautions limiting output to 15 and 18 digits respectively
for double and extended.  This is floating-point after all and lack of
accuracy at the limits is expected.