[Info-vax] New VSI Roadmap (yipee!)

[Scott Dorsey]

glen herrmannsfeldt  <gah at ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
>David Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>> lists at openmailbox.org wrote:
>>>> I can't imagine ever using floating point in a new money handling
>>>> application these days given all the other options available.
> 
>>> It was *never* acceptable!
> 
>> Even when there was no other options?
>
>There have been computers that used the same logic and format for
>fixed and floating point. (With the right post-normalize logic, 
>it works.)

If you're thinking of the machines I am thinking of, those machines did
a pretty lousy job of handling small integers.

The CDC COBOL compiler stored "BCD-like" values as strings of 6-bit chars
in 60-bit words and I remember it doing some sort of horrible trick with
the FP normalize instruction to manipulate those strings.

To say it was not a fast machine running COBOL was an understatement.
--scott

-- 
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."