IEEE floating point format

[Andrew Koenig]

In article <26532 at amdcad.AMD.COM>, tim at crackle.amd.com (Tim Olson) writes:

> Neither.  Double precision fields are 1 sign, 11 exponent, and 52
> fraction bits.

OK, I've stopped relying on my memory and went and looked at
a paper I wrote about it a few years ago.

You're both right -- in the introductory section of that
paper I said

	An IEEE double precisionf floating point number
	is 64 bits: a sign bit, an 11-bit exponent, and
	a 52-bit fraction ... A single bit, not explicitly
	stored, precedes the binary point; this bit is called
	the hidden bit and its value is determined by that
	of the exponent.

Forgive my dropped neurons; I am quite confident about this
version because I checked it agains the IEEE standard at the
time I wrote it.
-- 
				--Andrew Koenig
				  ark at europa.att.com