The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 29, 1986
Filed:
May. 25, 1984
Anthony Hassitt, Mountain View, CA (US);
Alan H Karp, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Randolph G Scarborough, Mountain View, CA (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A method for extending the exponent range in an IBM System/370-type floating point arithmetic processor. Very large or very small numbers are represented by a pair of words having sign, exponent, and fraction portions thereof. If the signs of the low- and high-order words of a pair are the same, then the number is deemed to be in the ordinary processor operating range. However, if the signs differ, then the number is deemed to be out of range. In this case, a range extension is obtained by using the exponent field of the low-order word which otherwise would be transparent to the floating point processor.