In article <cjameshuff-C61DD4.07112823032004@news.povray.org> , Christopher
James Huff <cja### [at] earthlinknet>  wrote:

>> > Right, but there's no built-in mechanism for handling this. If you want
>> > to use 128-bit IEEE754 floats, you have to write IEEE754 floats...
>>
>> I am not sure what this is supposed to say at all.  Nothing says that "
>> double " cannot be a 128 bit IEEE 754 float.  In fact, certain platforms do
>> currently offer 128 bit IEEE 754 floats as "long double".
>
> But common languages, and none that I know of which it would be feasible
> to write POV in, have a standard, portable facility for writing 128 bit
> IEEE 754 floats.

C and C++ have "long double".  Neither language specifies that "double"
implies 64 bit IEEE 754 float either.  Apart from C and C++, Fortran
supports more than 64 bit IEEE 754 floats as well.  Honestly, I am not aware
of any other languages that really matter in the scientific computing
community.

    Thorsten

____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

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