On 2023-12-05 04:56, Darryl Gregorash wrote:
On 2023-12-04 20:52, Carlos E. R. wrote:
On 2023-12-05 03:37, Darryl Gregorash wrote:
On 2023-12-04 18:24, David C. Rankin wrote:
All,
To celebrate the list working again, I'll pass along something that brought a smile to my face a bit ago. I was looking at help for kcalc, and I noticed a entry for long-double precision and clicked it:
https://paste.opensuse.org/pastes/b1300d1770a4
Remember when user-choice and customization was the touchstone of Linux? Back when the help pages told you about defines to tailor the app to your needs and then a simple:
./configure make make install
The good ole days.... :)
Ordinarily I hesitate to ask silly questions, but when was the last time you needed double precision calculation, much less long double? Never mind it's not even a IEEE standard..
Yet the processor has those types,, I assue so someone uses them.
Yeah, if you are working, for example, at places like CERN or LIGO.
Looong ago, when you had to buy the coprocesor separately, I was told that long integers (whatever was the type back then) were needed for finantial calculations. You could not add trillions of dollars and drop a cent out to rounding. I remember the curiosity that the types available to the coprocesor did not match the ieee types, back then. Maybe the Intel people thought differently. I have not read again on the matter, but I am curious what is the status today. Maybe a wikipedia article? -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from openSUSE 15.5 (Laicolasse))