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In article <1eou72INNe14@network.ucsd.edu> mbk@poincare.ucsd.edu (Matt Kennel) writes:
>hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
>: In article <722322705@sheol.UUCP> throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop) writes:

>: 			...................

>:                   e can communicate binary integers across machines
>: >: and implementations; the much used notation 0ddddd for octal and
>: >: 0xdddddddd for hexadecimal, bad as they are, do this explicitly.

			.....................

>Most digital computers have binary floating point, so
>some number like

>+/- B1 * 2^(B2),

>with b1 a number between 0 and 1 expressed as a binary fraction,
>and b2 an integer ought to do the trick.  It is proabably very
>ugly, but isn't this the right idea?

>In the "fortran E exponent model" (from 1959 or so!)

>1000101110010 B 0010101010

This is the general idea.  However, something a little more flexible and
taking a little less time to type, transmit, etc., would be in order.
Typing 64 0's and 1's is too much of a chore, and also increases the
chance of error.

Unfortunately, natural notation like using E for exponent runs into 
problems.  A suggestion:  extend the present octal (I see problems
here for numbers less than 1; maybe they should start with 00) and
hex notation to allow an "integer point" to be inserted as well, and
use P for power of 2 by which the resulting fixed-point number is
to be multiplied.
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@snap.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)  
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