IEEE float co-processors

["Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>]

    I believe the standard should allow the processor to perform all floating
    point arithmetic computations in highest precision, and not require
    multiple conversions (from short to single to double to long).

    The paragraph which allows rearrangement or conversion to the longest
    format IN THE EXPRESSION is not flexible enough to quite allow this.

This sounds like a good proposal, and it wouldn't break anyone's code to
implement it.  I think that all we need is a clarification that says
that a compiler is allowed to do whatever it wants to in handling
the precision of intermediate arithmetic results, as long as any outputs
finally accessible to the user are of the specified type and as long as
precision is at least as good as you would get by doing the obvious
coercions at each step.

My only concern is that the interpreter would probably be stuck with
doing the coercions at each step, and therefore might get a slightly
different (less precise) answer than the compiler would come up with.
Would that bother anyone?  (Not me, but I only look at the first two
digits anyway...)

-- Scott