[tlug] Floating Point Formats. . . . . . . . . . (was Re: Portability of Misaligned Data Access)

[Jim <jep200404@example.com>]

Ian Wells wrote:

> Doing the same thing, portably, for a double in IEE[E]754 format is left
> as an exercise to the bored reader.  Who, it is to be hoped, doesn't
> have to port to VAXen, where the FP formats have a completely
> different range and accuracy.  Believe me, I know.

I vaguely recall from an assembler class that the IBM 360 (370?) 
used base 16 "mantissas". (Damn that was a _very_ long time ago. 
Am I recalling correctly?) 

http://www.quadibloc.com/comp/cp0201.htm looks interesting and 
seems to corroborate my foggy memory. VAX doesn't look the least 
bit wierd, just different.