(j3.2006) Liaison to IFIP WG 2.5

[Aleksandar Donev]

On Tuesday 21 August 2007 08:43, Bill Long wrote:

> 1) There would have to be significant customer demand (so far I've seen
> exactly zero such demand), and
Maybe, but the demand is not going to come unless there is something worthy to 
demand, i.e., there is potential for fast execution and there is a standard. 
As Mike said, it is not much different from co-arrays...it takes time...

> 2) Hardware support needs to be widespread to make something beyond a
> module worthwhile from a performance point of view. ?That means, at a
> minimum, that IEEE 754r++ specify a standard.
Yes, I see hardware support as a necessary precondition.

Personally, I've wondered if it is possible to do interval FP in an additional 
off-processor unit (like GPUs or FPGAs or some other thing one can add to a 
processor)? Interval arithmetic is nice to have but IMO it is almost never 
necessary that ALL floating-point calculations be done with intervals. 
Certainly not at the cost of the usual FP calculations.

Aleks