Digital Arithmetic

368 ~:: H ~#a~ P ~ E ~ 7 Iterative Approximation

We consider first the computation of the reciprocal function. This function is

important in itself and is the basis for the methods for division. A similar situation

occurs for reciprocal square root and square root.

We consider the case of operands and result in sign-and-magnitude repre-

sentation. Moreover, since the determination of the sign is straightforward and

independent of the operation on magnitudes, we concentrate on the latter.

Reciprocal

For the reciprocal function, we describe two related methods: the application of

the general Newton-Raphson method to obtain the zero ...