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128 bit decimal floating point
Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2010 3:44 pm
by giangiquario
Support for 128-bit Decimal Floating Point Numbers is expected for version 13.
Will the "machine epsilon" be lesser than 2*-53 for those numbers?
Thank you.
Re: 128 bit decimal floating point
Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2010 9:26 am
by Geoff|Dyalog
The precision of 128 bit decimal floating point is 34 decimal digits. The range is from
¯9999999999999999999999999999999999E6011 to
+9999999999999999999999999999999999E6011
there should be 34 9's in those numbers.
Re: 128 bit decimal floating point
Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2010 2:38 pm
by paulmansour
Oh yeah!
Re: 128 bit decimal floating point
Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2010 1:49 pm
by Morten|Dyalog
Before you all get too excited, note that the performance of 128-bit decimal floating-point is more than an order of magnitude slower than 64-bit binary (because it uses software emulation), unless you are using recent IBM "Power" hardware, where it will be about 4x slower (due to having lots more bits to look at).
.. but the precision is impressive ...