GMP division plans (Torbjorn Granlund)

[Jim White]

> They *are* really extending the IEEE standard
> to include decimal floating point (principally 
> intended for hardware implementation).
> 
> Torbj?rn

The wonderful B5000/6000/7000 stack-architecture
mainframes had hardware-assisted BCD arithmetic, I
believe. Not that I ever used it myself, but I assume
it was originally intended to give native data-type
support for COBOL users (999999v9999 and all that). 

I found an interesting bibliography of historical
documents regarding floating-point decimal
implementations and standards here: 

http://www2.hursley.ibm.com/decimal/decbibfloating.html

Sure enough, there's an entry in there for the
original B5500  Systems reference Manual (1964).

Lots of other interesting stuff in there too -
including ANSI and IEEE involvement ...


Cheers
JW