[comp.sys.dec] DECstation floating: VAX or IEEE?

granroth@iowasp.physics.uiowa.edu (07/11/90)

Forgive me for posting this simple question to the net, but I'm sure
I'll get an answer far faster than going through the local sales rep.

Do the DEC/MIPS/RISC workstations use IEEE floating point or VAX floating
point internal representations?  I've been told that the DECstations use
low-byte-first as do the VAX systems, and I suspect that the floating
point is similar, but what is the underlying format?  And if they
use VAX floating point, does the software also do G and H floating, etc?

Thanks.

-Larry    Granroth@IowaSP.physics.UIowa.edu    IOWASP::GRANROTH

allen@basalt.uucp (Allen Akin) (07/11/90)

In article <1990Jul10.152724.567@iowasp.physics.uiowa.edu> granroth@iowasp.physics.uiowa.edu writes:
>...
>Do the DEC/MIPS/RISC workstations use IEEE floating point or VAX floating
>point internal representations?

The MIPS-based DECstations use IEEE floating-point and little-endian byte
ordering.  This makes them completely data-format compatible with the
Intel x86 family of processors, which may be interesting if you're
attempting to share data with PCs.

Allen