• Re: short float

    From Dave Brower@dbrower@gmail.com to comp.std.c on Wed Dec 9 11:21:29 2020
    From Newsgroup: comp.std.c

    On Monday, October 28, 2019 at 3:58:08 AM UTC-7, Philipp Klaus Krause wrote:
    While the idea of a short float was viewed favorably by the comitee a
    few years ago, in London, the authors never followed up with a detailed proposal.

    I'd like to see short float in C, not just because a lot of hardware supports it, but also as a relatively efficient floating-point type for devices that don't have hardware support for floating-point at all:

    http://www.colecovision.eu/stuff/proposal-short-float.html

    Just stumbled on this. If there are OpenGL unsigned floats, why not have 'unsigned short float' as a thing, with 'short float' as a signed type?

    (Yes, I know it's a year later).

    -dB
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  • From Keith Thompson@Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com to comp.std.c on Wed Dec 9 13:09:51 2020
    From Newsgroup: comp.std.c

    Dave Brower <dbrower@gmail.com> writes:
    On Monday, October 28, 2019 at 3:58:08 AM UTC-7, Philipp Klaus Krause wrote:
    While the idea of a short float was viewed favorably by the comitee a
    few years ago, in London, the authors never followed up with a detailed
    proposal.

    I'd like to see short float in C, not just because a lot of hardware
    supports it, but also as a relatively efficient floating-point type for
    devices that don't have hardware support for floating-point at all:

    http://www.colecovision.eu/stuff/proposal-short-float.html

    Just stumbled on this. If there are OpenGL unsigned floats, why not
    have 'unsigned short float' as a thing, with 'short float' as a signed
    type?

    (Yes, I know it's a year later).

    This:
    https://www.khronos.org/opengl/wiki/Data_Type_(GLSL)
    does not indicate that OpenGL has unsigned floats.

    I found a reference to 10- and 11-bit unsigned floating-point types, but
    I get the impression that they're not language-defined types.
    https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/opengl-programming-guide/9780132748445/app07lev1sec3.html
    C would not be able to support a type whose size is not a multiple of
    CHAR_BIT (bit fields notwithstanding).

    --
    Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com
    Working, but not speaking, for Philips Healthcare
    void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */
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  • From Philipp Klaus Krause@pkk@spth.de to comp.std.c on Sat Dec 12 14:49:47 2020
    From Newsgroup: comp.std.c

    The proposal is dead anyway. Many, including Nvidia, now see float,
    double and long double as mistakes that can't be undone, but shouldn't
    be repeated either.
    They'd prefer all floating-point formats to be defined precisely down to
    the last bit in representation and semantics.

    Philipp
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  • From jacob navia@jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr to comp.std.c on Sun Dec 13 13:42:34 2020
    From Newsgroup: comp.std.c

    Le 12/12/2020 à 14:49, Philipp Klaus Krause a écrit :
    The proposal is dead anyway. Many, including Nvidia, now see float,
    double and long double as mistakes that can't be undone, but shouldn't
    be repeated either.
    They'd prefer all floating-point formats to be defined precisely down to
    the last bit in representation and semantics.

    Philipp


    IEEE754 is dead also?

    Can you point me to some written text by a comptetent authority that
    says what you are saying?

    Thanks
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