Date   : Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:13:45 -0700
From   : angus_beeb@... (Angus Duggan)
Subject: Converting numeric representations

[Oops, think I sent this from the wrong address first time, it may not make 
it through.]

Jonathan Graham Harston wrote:
>> Message-ID: <546999.76735.qm@...>
>  
> Peter Craven wrote:
>> In programming, changing the format of a floating-point number
>> so the left-most digit in the mantissa is not a zero.
>  
> How should describe what I'm doing in
> http://mdfs.net/Software/CommandSrc/BasUtils/Vars/VList111.s and
> http://beebwiki.jonripley.com/Denormalising_a_number ?
>  
> As normalising is moving the mantissa until the top bit is
> nonzero, the word denormalising seems appropriate for moving the
> mantissa (usually the other way) until the exponent is zero.

No, denormalised numbers are already used in FP. They refer to numbers where
the exponent is at minimum (a negative number rather than zero), and the
mantissa doesn't have the leftmost bit set. They are numbers smaller than
the range which the full precision of the mantissa can be applied.

a.