should double have better precision or greater range?

[Henry Spencer]

In article <1988Sep7.194946.4808 at utzoo.uucp> henry at utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>IEEE floating point requires an "extended" format, for example.  (NB, there
>are a number of machines that use IEEE data formats without implementing
>the full IEEE standard.)  ...

Turns out I missed a bit of weasel-wording in the standard that permits
one to implement just single precision plus a corresponding extended format,
and double precision meets (I think) the constraints on extended single,
so it is technically legitimate to have just single and double.  Barf.
-- 
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