float literal too large

[Uwe Zessin]

In article <8jat5b$2t4 at stochastic.eng.umd.edu>,
  moron at Glue.umd.edu (Warren B. Focke) wrote:
>
[...]
> Python floats are stored in platform doubles.  On IEEE-754 compliant
> hardware (pretty much anything other than a Cray (or VAX, but I don't
> think they make those anymore (unless alphas have a VAX math mode)))

Correct, VAX hardware does not support IEEE floating point formats.
The last VAX chips have been produced a long time ago and Digital/
Compaq have lived from a big warehouse. Last time I checked there
is only a very limited supply left and orderability ends soon. Note
that it's format is older than IEEE. (So much for the 'proprietary'
argument ;-)
Operating system support for VAX (OpenVMS) is still available, and
active. New things, of course, go into Alpha - if possible they appear
on VAX, too.

Yes, Alpha chips do support (some) VAX floating point formats in
addition to 2 (if I recall correctly) IEEE fp formats. The port of
Python for OpenVMS, however, uses the VAX formats for now.
I have tried to compile in IEEE mode and it seemed to work, but I
have not done any more tests.

[ remaining explanations cut ]

--
Uwe Zessin


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.