How come we get different answers on one platform versus a linux x86 platform?
The x86 architecture implements a floating-point stack by using 8 80-bit registers. Each register uses bits 0-63 as the significand, bits 64-78 for the exponent, and bit 79 is the sign bit. This extended 80-bit real format used by floating instructions is the default. When values are loaded into the floating point stack they are automatically converted into the extended real format. The precision of the floating point stack can be controlled, however, by setting the precision control bits (bits 8 and 9) of the floating control word appropriately. In this way, the programmer can explicitly set the precision to standard IEEE double or single precision (the Intel documentation, however, claims that this only affects the operations of add, subtract, multiply, divide, and square root.) We have also noticed that, although extended precision is supposedly the default which is set for the control word, it is set at double precision in the x86 linux systems. Thus, we now also have a -pc
