80287 Emulation Limitations for 16-Bit Applications

 Last reviewed: May 5, 1997
Article ID: Q101955

The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft Windows NT operating system, version 3.1
  • Microsoft Windows NT Advanced Server, version 3.1

The 80287 emulation provided for support of 16-bit applications is limited in range to the support provided by the MIPS R4000 FPU. Thus there is a small range of numbers at the extreme ranges of the 80287's available numbering system that are not usable under the provided emulation.

These are the supported ranges: 

                   Maximum                  Minimum
                   -------                  -------
Short real         3.40282e+38              1.17549e-38
Long & temp real   1.797631+308             2.22507e-308
NOTE: The R4000 FPU does not support temp real format. Temp real arithmetic on the emulated 80287 is performed as long real. The 80287's temp real format extends beyond these supported ranges, and therefore some applications may use numbers outside the above range to derive user-entered numbers. This can add an additional restriction to the above. For example, in Microsoft Access, the smallest long real (double) value that Microsoft Access accepts is 1e-301.

Additional query words: prodnt
Keywords : kbhw nt16ap nthw
Version : 3.1
Platform : WINDOWS

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Last reviewed: May 5, 1997
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