shirono@hcx3.SSD.HARRIS.COM (12/06/88)
In comp.lang.c, gl8f@bessel.acc.Virginia.EDU writes: > Why are arguments to C functions always widened to ints or doubles? PDP 11. > This > makes sense when the argument is being widened to the buswidth (which > ints are supposed to be), but doubles are often larger than that. The reason for auto-type-conversion to double was because the FPP on the PDP 11 could operate in one of two modes: single and double precision, but going from one to the other was rather costly. This (I believe) was the reason why DMR specified that all floating point arithmetic was to be performed in double: have the program startup routine set the FPP to double mode and just keep going. --Roberto ______________________________________________________________________________ || Internet: shirono@ssd.harris.com Roberto Shironoshita || Harris Corporation || ...!novavax---\ Computer Systems Division || UUCP: ...!uunet-------!hcx1!shirono || ...!mit-eddie-/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed here are my own; they in no way reflect the opinion or policies of Harris Corporation.