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A floating-point technique for extending the available precision

T. J. Dekker
- 01 Jun 1971 - 
- Vol. 18, Iss: 3, pp 224-242
TLDR
A technique is described for expressing multilength floating-point arithmetic in terms of singlelength floating point arithmetic, i.e. the arithmetic for an availablefloating-point number system.
Abstract
A technique is described for expressing multilength floating-point arithmetic in terms of singlelength floating point arithmetic, i.e. the arithmetic for an available (say: single or double precision) floating-point number system. The basic algorithms are exact addition and multiplication of two singlelength floating-point numbers, delivering the result as a doublelength floating-point number. A straight-forward application of the technique yields a set of algorithms for doublelength arithmetic which are given as ALGOL 60 procedures.

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I
NG
T.J.
DEKKER
stichting
mathematisch
centrum
MR
118/70
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FLOATING-POINT
TECHNIQUE
FOR
EXTENDING
THE
AVAILABLE
PRECISION
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A
FLOATING-POINT
TECHNIQUE
FOR
EXTENDING
THE
AVAILABLE
PRECISION
Abstract
by
*)
T.J.
Dekker
A
technique
is
described
for
expressing
multilength
floating-point
arith-
metic
in
terms
of
singlelength
floating-point
arithmetic,
i.e.
the
arith-
metic
for
an
available
(say:
single
or
double
precision)
floating-point
number
system.
The
basic
algorithms
are
exact
addition
and
multiplication
of
two
singlelength
floating-point
numbers,
delivering
the
result
as
a
doublelength
floating-point
number. A
straightforward
application
of
the
technique
yields
a
set
of
algorithms
for
doublelength
arithmetic
which
are
given
as
ALGOL
60
procedures.
*)
Part
. . . .
of
this
research
was done
while
the
author
was
visiting
Bell
Telephone
Laboratories,
Murray
Hill,
New
Jersey.


Contents
1
Introduction
2
Floating-point
number systems
3
Floating-point
operations
4 Exact
addition
5
Exact
multiplication
6
Splitting
into
halflength
numbers
7
Doublelength
arithmetic
8 Appendix.
ALGOL
60
procedures
9 Acknowledgements
10
References
page 1
4
6
8
16
21
24
32
36
36

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Revised report on the algorithm language ALGOL 60

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