Yeah. I know. I'm not disagreeing with your diagnosis, I'm just trying to gently rib you that your correction is misaimed. It's a joke, ya know? >Single-precis

Yeah. I know. I'm not disagreeing with your diagnosis, I'm just trying to gently rib you that your correction is misaimed. It's a joke, ya know? >Single-precision computations for traditional applications are suitable only for experts, not for ordinary computer users. Lots of ordinary computer users did compute in single precision! The reason I picked the 1990s as 'ancient' and not 1980 (when the 8087 was taped out) or 1985 (when IEEE754 was finally approved) was because those microprocessors were now in the hands of users who weren't under the supervision of 'experts'. That, along with the lack of fast 64 bit registers + the desire for high throughput at low fidelity led to a lot of 32 bit code! And, frankly, if you want to get real technical, the ability of non-experts to program in FP in 64 bit is enforced NOT ONLY by the doubled bits but by the implicit ability (absent now in many implementations) to use the 80 bit extended precision format for intermediate calcs. It's the added bits in that format for scratch that let lots of 64 bit programs just work.