Floating Point Formats

This 1969 engineering design note by Bruce Delagi analyzes floating point representation formats for the PDP-11 architecture. The document discusses the trade-offs between binary and hex normalization, particularly regarding software emulation complexity and precision loss. It explores different configurations of bit-lengths for the exponent and mantissa to maintain competitiveness with other market offerings. The author provides a detailed recommendation for a 16-bit word-based representation, suggesting a 24-bit mantissa and an 8-bit exponent with binary normalization as the most balanced approach for the machine's needs.