(SR-52) Arithmetic Paradoxes (W. Kahan)

[Thomas Okken]

(08-23-2019 10:11 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  

(08-23-2019 09:41 PM)toml_12953 Wrote:  I wonder what the SR-52 III was. I used to own an SR-52 but never heard of the III.

I believe it's a theoretical SR-52 that does not have round-off errors, created by Kahan within the paper to explore and explain issues and impacts related to the round-off techniques used in the actual SR-52. I didn't read the whole paper yet so could be wrong, but the intro sections inferred this, so I'm taking a small leap.

That is correct. (I did read the whole paper -- slow day at the office!) Kahan points out some quirks in the way the SR-52 handles limited precision, compares that to a few other calculators, and then discusses how the calculator's numerical behavior would improve if those quirks were absent. It's quite an interesting read.