.... and many other things exist to frustrate accurate computing. Long,
long ago when translating antenna modeling (written in FORTRAN) that had
given reasonable results on a 60 bit/word CDC computer to an IBM 32 bit/word
computer, I found the code for one antenna type to be unsalvageable. No
matter what was done with concatenating words together, garbage resulted. A
close look found that the algorithms used were much too sensitive to
significant figures.
I experienced another case where supposedly identical IBM computers
produced different results using the same code.
I echo: work reasonable examples by hand and compare their results to
what the computer produces.
Believable engineering programs earn respect just as people do.
73, Mac N8TT
P.S. My ISP has been having conniptions with their news server, so I have
missed a lot.
--
J. Mc Laughlin; Michigan U.S.A.
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