Re: Building current...

[Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

> Given this discussion, I'm inclined to view the existence of Inf and NaN a d$

(Please don't use paragraph-length lines.)

I'm not so sure.  Infinities, maybe.  NaNs, I don't think so, though an
argument could be made that quiet NaNs are.

Unless you come up with a meaning for every bit pattern, you will have
some kind of erroneous patterns to deal with.  The VAX calls them
reserved operands.  IEEE split them up, leaving some as more or less
the same thing - calling them signaling NaNs - and splitting some off
into quiet NaNs and infinities as well.  (They also, as compared to the
VAX, created denormalized numbers, but I've seen no reason to think
they are any more problematic than any of the other ways of dealing
with exponent underflow.)  The mistakes (if that's what they are - I'm
not entirely convinced), were quiet NaNs and infinities.

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