FOCUS Microcomputer Number System FOCUS is a number system and supporting computational algorithms especially useful for microcomputer control and other signal processing applications. FOCUS has the wide-ranging character of floating-point numbers with a uniformity of state distributions that give FOCUS better than a twofold accuracy advantage over an equal word length floating-point system. FOCUS computations are typically five times faster than single precision fixed-point or integer arithmetic for a mixture of operations, comparable in speed with hardware arithmetic for many applications. Algorithms for 8-bit and 16-bit implementations of FOCUS are included. CACM March, 1979 Edgar, A. Lee, S. Number representation, logarithmic arithmetic, computational speed, computational accuracy, microcomputer applications 3.24 3.80 4.0 4.22 5.11 CA790302 DH April 12, 1979 11:12 AM 3131 4 3131 3131 4 3131 1148 5 3131 3131 5 3131 3131 5 3131 3131 5 3131 893 5 3131