[NTLUG:Discuss] The wrong computation example from the newsgroup

[Steve Baker]

sysmail at glade.net wrote:
> 
> Hmmm...  Pardon spewage from a newcomer, but gcc is an application, not
> an operating system.

It is *possible* for this to be Linux's "fault" (except that it's not a fault)
on the PC. Even though it's already been shown to work "as expected" under
Linux on Alpha's and on the PC with optimisation turned on.

I would imagine that the hardware floating point unit is initialised by Linux
and not by GCC and it's libraries.  I believe that the low level rounding
policy is determined by the chip setup - and hence there is a teeny-tiny
chance that this could be Linux's "fault" (bearing in mind that this isn't
a fault, etc, etc).

I know that some PC games (under Windoze) deliberately change the rounding
mode of the hardware for some arcane reason.

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