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From: Doug McIlroy <doug@cs.dartmouth.edu>
To: tuhs@tuhs.org
Subject: Re: [TUHS] reviving a bit of WWB
Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2020 10:19:25 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <202009251419.08PEJPkV248911@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu> (raw)

> Turing save us from 1-complement machines!

Users of Whirlwind II were warned about the quirks of -0.
We were not warned, though, about integer divide with remainder 0.
The result of dividing 6 by 3, for example, was binary 1.111111... -
a valid answer when carried to infinity. Unfortunately, the
"fractional" part was dropped.

Most people used Whirlwind for floating-point computation, and
blithely dismissed printed answers like 1.999999 as "roundoff
errors".

Doug

             reply	other threads:[~2020-09-25 14:20 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 57+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2020-09-25 14:19 Doug McIlroy [this message]
2020-09-28 17:35 ` Angelo Papenhoff
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2020-09-20 23:00 Norman Wilson
2020-09-20 23:53 ` Clem Cole
2020-09-21  0:00   ` Clem Cole
2020-09-21  2:24     ` John Cowan
2020-09-21  0:09   ` Warner Losh
2020-09-21  1:05     ` Clem Cole
2020-09-21  5:55     ` Steve Nickolas
2020-09-21  5:59       ` Warner Losh
2020-09-21 18:40         ` Paul Winalski
2020-09-21 19:56           ` Dan Cross
2020-09-21 20:50       ` John Cowan
2020-09-21 21:22         ` Rob Pike
2020-09-21 21:57           ` Clem Cole
2020-09-21 23:56             ` John Cowan
2020-09-22  0:54               ` Richard Salz
2020-09-21 21:39         ` Steve Nickolas
2020-09-20 22:51 Norman Wilson
2020-09-19  1:51 Doug McIlroy
2020-09-20 18:42 ` arnold
2020-09-20 19:28   ` Will Senn
2020-09-20 20:12     ` Steve Nickolas
2020-09-20 20:26       ` Doug McIlroy
2020-09-20 20:57         ` Doug McIlroy
2020-09-20 22:13           ` Clem Cole
2020-09-21 20:43             ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2020-09-20 20:58         ` Steve Nickolas
2020-09-20 21:33           ` Brantley Coile
2020-10-07  5:43             ` scj
2020-09-20 21:35           ` John Cowan
2021-02-02 23:08             ` Greg A. Woods
2021-02-02 23:47               ` Larry McVoy
2021-02-03  0:11                 ` Dave Horsfall
2021-02-03  0:19                   ` Larry McVoy
2021-02-03  2:04                     ` Richard Salz
2021-02-03  3:32                       ` Dave Horsfall
2021-02-03  4:32                         ` M Douglas McIlroy
2021-02-03 11:27                           ` Peter Jeremy via TUHS
2021-02-03 20:09                             ` Dave Horsfall
2021-02-03 20:13                               ` Niklas Karlsson
2021-02-03 23:46                               ` Tom Lyon
2021-02-03 22:19                           ` Dave Horsfall
2021-02-03 22:55                             ` M Douglas McIlroy
2020-09-20 22:15           ` Clem Cole
2020-09-20 22:47             ` John Cowan
2020-09-21 20:48               ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2020-09-21 20:46           ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2020-09-24  2:25       ` Dave Horsfall
2020-09-24  2:33         ` Clem Cole
2020-09-27  5:54           ` Dave Horsfall
2020-09-24 17:19         ` Paul Winalski
2020-09-24 18:17           ` John Cowan
2020-10-07  5:47   ` scj
2020-10-07  9:20     ` arnold
2020-10-08  0:27     ` Dave Horsfall
2020-10-08  3:08       ` John Cowan

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