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Subject: Re: ieee 754 and p854
To: "Kevin P. Neal" <kpn@neutralgood.org>,
 Anton Shterenlikht <mexas@bris.ac.uk>
References: <201608241648.u7OGmRCj084423@mech-as222.men.bris.ac.uk>
 <20160825002404.GA95876@neutralgood.org>
Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
From: Arthur Chance <freebsd@qeng-ho.org>
Message-ID: <721affab-7b9f-f366-c046-d594be36bce1@qeng-ho.org>
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2016 08:28:06 +0100
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On 25/08/2016 01:24, Kevin P. Neal wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 24, 2016 at 05:48:27PM +0100, Anton Shterenlikht wrote:
>> ieee(3) and many older sources mention p854 as
>> an extension to standard 754. I cannot find
>> any trace of p854 past 1985. Has it been obsoleted
>> by the development of 754?
> 
> Wasn't 854 base 10? I have a vague memory that 854 was incorporated into
> the 2008 revision of 754.
> 
> There's probably more if you care to wade through it:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_754_revision
> 

>From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_854-1987

The standard was published in 1987, nearly immediately superseded by
IEEE 754-1985 but never terminated (the year of ratification appears
after the dash). IEEE 854 did not specify any formats, whereas IEEE
754-1985 did.

Sounds like 854 was a bit of a false start and/or duplicate effort.

-- 
Schrödinger's cat had 18 half lives.