XPost: rec.arts.comics.strips   
   From: kludge@panix.com   
      
   Thomas Koenig   wrote:   
   >Scott Dorsey  schrieb:   
   >> Cryptoengineer   wrote:   
   >>>DEC used to make a popular line of minicomputers under the name 'VAX'.   
   >>>That name is  also used by a brand of vacuum cleaners in the UK, but   
   >>>it did not lead to any legal issues when DEC started to sell Vaxen in   
   >>>Britain.   
   >>   
   >> They are extremely similar.  They both have pipes and filters.  And   
   >> the DEC floating point really sucks.   
   >   
   >It was _far_ better than IBM's hex format.  I think DEC pioneered   
   >the hidden bit.   
      
   HFP was even more terrible, it's true.  The Honeywell scheme with   
   36 bits of mantissa, 8 bits of exponent, and 28 bits of useless waste   
   was even worse than that.  But ignoring underflow should be a big red flag.   
   --scott   
   --   
   "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)