[Numpy-discussion] supporting quad precision

[Henry Gomersall]

On Sat, 2013-06-08 at 14:35 +0200, Anne Archibald wrote:
> Looking at the rational module, I think you're right: it really
> shouldn't be too hard to get quads working as a user type using gcc's
> __float128 type, which will provide hardware arithmetic in the
> unlikely case that the user has hardware quads. Alternatively,
> probably more work, one could use a package like qd to provide
> portable quad precision (and quad-double).

In this vague area, and further to a question I asked a while ago on
StackOverflow (http://stackoverflow.com/q/9062562/709852), is there some
deep reason why on some platforms longdouble is float128 and on other
it's float96?

cheers,
Henry