[ANSI-Smalltalk] Agenda items...

[Paolo Bonzini]

> I am not sure that the exponents chosen are putting the mantissa in [1, 
> 2)... why would that be? 
>
>     Andres Valloud wrote:
>      > Paolo,
>      >
>      > Yes, the implementation here uses 1023 and -1022.
> 
>     Then you put the mantissa in [1,2), not [0.5,1).

Because, for example, 1 * 2^1023 is a valid IEEE number, but it is not 
valid if expressed with a mantissa in [0.5,1).  If you want to express 
with the right mantissa range, you have to write it as 0.5 * 2^1024 
(i.e. use an exponent of 1024).

I don't have time to check now, but it *might* be that IEEE used a 
mantissa in [1,2).  Smalltalk-98 however uses LIA-1 and I'm sure that 
LIA-1 uses [0.5,1).

Paolo