Here's a whole Wikipedia section about extended formats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_precision#IEEE_754_extended_precision_formats https://en.wikiped

Here's a whole Wikipedia section about extended formats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_precision#IEEE_754_extended_precision_formats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_precision#IEEE_754_ex... Now I totally agree that people should almost always not be storing these things on disk or passing them across the network, but they were RECOMMENDED by the IEEE committee, and that's why Intel and Motorola implemented them. A kinda bad idea, bad implementation choices, but recommended.