Document from a previous standardization attempt

[Ralph Baker Kearfott <rbk@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

P-1788 members:

Nathalie has asked me to post the interval arithmetic
document from the Fortran committee proceedings.
Please see the attached document, which is from the
ANSI/X3J3 (Fortran Committee) archives.  This was the proposal
for an interval standard in Fortran.  At the time, I was
championing this, and, at this meeting, Fortran had been
voted (by a bare majority) to be a part of the standard.
At a subsequent meeting, a re-vote was taken due to a change
of stance by one of the vendors, and it was voted not to
include it, by a bare majority.

Although many of the issues in front of us have already been
resolved differently than in the attached document, we still
need to consider output, comparisons / relational operators,
and set operations, and the attached document may offer some
food for thought.

I also remind people that the "Vienna proposal" is a complete
document, that is more up-to-date, albeit less simple.  Finally,
realize that the attached document was meant for a language
standard.  As such, its scope is different from an arithmetic
standard.  (For example, "no accuracy requirement" was meant
to have it fit the Fortran of the time.)

Besides output, relational operators, and set operations, we
have identified interchange format, constructors, and reverse
mode functions for discussion.  Our technical editor (John Pryce)
is presently contacting prospective champions of these
topics.

Best regards,

Baker
(vice-chair, P-1788)
--

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R. Baker Kearfott,    rbk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx   (337) 482-5346 (fax)
(337) 482-5270 (work)                     (337) 993-1827 (home)
URL: http://interval.louisiana.edu/kearfott.html
Department of Mathematics, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
(Room 217 Maxim D. Doucet Hall, 1403 Johnston Street)
Box 4-1010, Lafayette, LA 70504-1010, USA
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Attachment: 96-127.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document