From: "Charles H. Sauer" <sauer@technologists.com>
To: John Levine <johnl@taugh.com>
Cc: tuhs@tuhs.org
Subject: [TUHS] Re: arithmetic, Re: ANSI (C) vs IEEE (POSIX) Standards Body Selection
Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2024 22:41:45 -0500 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CBF6AC3A-C12E-428C-8A46-83375B1CAB70@technologists.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20240627023637.E16DE8E2CA18@ary.qy>
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> On Jun 26, 2024, at 9:36 PM, John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:
>
> It appears that Charles H Sauer (he/him) <sauer@technologists.com> said:
>> I was waiting for Heinz to say something, assuming he would at least say
>> what he did about the beginnings of POSIX.
>>
>> Another IEEE standard of great historical import is IEEE 754-1985 for
>> representing floating point numbers. Many of the 801 people wanted to
>> preserve IBM Hexadecimal floating point introduced with System/360.
>
> In view of the well known horrible numeric properities of the hex
> floating point, why? Because they had so much code written to work
> around it?
>
> R's,
> John
Maybe I knew back then, but anything I say now is supposition. I suppose the same mindset that wanted to see PL.8 succeed as PL/I revisited wanted to see 801 succeed as 370 revisited. In any case, quite a few of the Yorktown people that moved to Austin to help with what became RS/6000 came with the notion HFP was the true course.
Though you were no longer involved in that time frame, IIRC, you probably had a better sense than most non-IBM people of why I said "it was more like <em>M<sub>n</sub></em> competing factions within <em>N</em> competing companies.”
That Phil Hester was able to force 754 instead of HFP is more a credit to his political and technical skills than most non-IBM could appreciate.
Charlie
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2024-06-27 3:42 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 44+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2024-06-26 17:56 [TUHS] " segaloco via TUHS
2024-06-26 18:32 ` [TUHS] " Ori Idan
2024-06-26 18:42 ` Marc Rochkind
2024-06-26 20:07 ` Aron Insinga
2024-06-26 23:28 ` Peter Yardley
2024-06-26 18:35 ` Marc Rochkind
2024-06-26 18:43 ` James Johnston
2024-06-26 18:52 ` segaloco via TUHS
2024-06-26 19:34 ` Heinz Lycklama
2024-06-26 20:01 ` Charles H Sauer (he/him)
2024-06-27 2:36 ` [TUHS] Re: arithmetic, " John Levine
2024-06-27 3:41 ` Charles H. Sauer [this message]
2024-06-26 20:29 ` [TUHS] " Marc Rochkind
2024-06-26 21:17 ` Rich Salz
2024-06-26 21:20 ` Alan Coopersmith via TUHS
2024-06-26 21:28 ` Warner Losh
2024-06-26 21:49 ` Rich Salz
2024-06-26 21:53 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2024-06-27 0:44 ` Clem Cole
2024-06-27 1:11 ` [TUHS] Origin of the name POSIX (was: ANSI (C) vs IEEE (POSIX) Standards Body Selection) Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2024-06-27 2:12 ` [TUHS] " Ron Natalie
2024-06-27 2:37 ` Warner Losh
2024-06-27 14:19 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
[not found] ` <CAC20D2M+75ohjTPcTBmBkejeaWjQQjWCkf=4ZYrP4Bk0MCamKA@mail.gmail.com>
2024-06-27 3:02 ` Clem Cole
2024-06-27 3:03 ` Clem Cole
2024-06-27 3:08 ` Clem Cole
2024-06-27 8:20 ` Eric E. Bowles via TUHS
2024-06-27 11:56 ` John S Quarterman
[not found] ` <CAEoi9W4ZSVCVsJJ8pdBuBobeeXOkwsey0kM6DWBnPiuSd_7TQA@mail.gmail.com>
[not found] ` <CANCZdfoghuf4n=HDgRJXDJ5VqZ=rCtmq_0WadaR6kj8QmcoVQQ@mail.gmail.com>
2024-06-27 13:42 ` John S Quarterman
2024-06-27 11:58 ` Dan Cross
2024-06-27 14:34 ` Clem Cole
2024-06-27 15:05 ` [TUHS] Re: Origin of the name POSIX Heinz Lycklama
2024-06-27 13:57 ` [TUHS] Re: ANSI (C) vs IEEE (POSIX) Standards Body Selection Steffen Nurpmeso
2024-06-27 14:22 ` Chet Ramey via TUHS
2024-06-27 14:29 ` Andy Kosela
2024-06-27 14:59 ` Clem Cole
2024-06-27 4:12 ` Wesley Parish
2024-06-27 4:52 ` G. Branden Robinson
2024-06-26 19:47 ` Aron Insinga
2024-06-27 5:02 ` Nevin Liber
2024-06-26 20:36 ` Stuff Received
2024-06-26 22:33 ` James Johnston
2024-06-26 20:32 ` Clem Cole
2024-06-26 22:04 ` Heinz Lycklama
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