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Floating Point Arithmetic in Computers

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6 pages. In understanding floating point arithmetic in computers it is necessary to understand that floating numbers are inexact representations of real numbers and that because of this the operations that are performed on them are also inexact. Bibliography lists 4 sources.

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6 pages (~225 words per page)

File: D0_JGAescon.rtf

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Julie Abbott 10/2002 to Use This Paper Properly, INTRODUCTION In understanding floating point arithmetic in computers it is necessary to understand that floating numbers are inexact representations of real numbers and that because of this the operations that are performed on them are also inexact. FLOATING NUMBERS USED IN COMPUTERS. Floating numbers appeared as a problem in the 1960s and the 1970s. There was floating point computer hardware that dealt with numbers in different ways according to which computer was being used. Different computers seemingly had their own particular range of numbers with which they dealt, thus creating problems in mathematical computations. These problems ranged in difference of complexity. There were those computers that treated numbers as zero during addition and subtraction but treated numbers as one in multiplication and division. Needless to say, this threw up a problem when the variable was being used if it was being used as a 1.0 in one type of computation but had to be treated as a zero. There were computers that were not quite so big that they couldnt trap this overflow when it happened, and yet "This computer also had nonzero numbers so tiny that dividing them by themselves would overflow" (Severance, 1998, PG). On yet another computer, this very same computation would take off the last four bits in this type of development, and "Most computers could get zero from X - Y although X and Y were different; a few computers could get zero even though X and Y were huge and different" (Severance, 1998, PG). These problems were not considered to be bugs, however. These were happening on big commercial computers and programmers could not ignore them. Things ...

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