CREATING FLOATING POINT VALUES IN MIL-STD-1750A 32 AND 48 BIT FORMATS: ISSUES AND ALGORITHMS

Abstract

Experimentation with various routines that create floating point values in MIL-STD-1750A 32 and 48 bit formats has uncovered several flaws that result in loss of precision in approximation and/or incorrect results. This paper will discuss approximation and key computational conditions in the creation of values in these formats, and will describe algorithms that create values correctly and to the closest possible approximation. Test cases for determining behavior of routines of this type will also be supplied.