flops?

[calgar]

silly question, what exactly is a flop?

[Áedán]

In terms of computing, it stands for FLoating point OPeration. That's basically doing any kind of maths involving numbers that are in a "floating point" (IE, not an integer) form.

It is often used as a measurement of "performance", as it gives a vague indication to how well a system will operate in terms of it's maths power. Why is that important? Well, multimedia (encoding and decoding of video, audio and static images), content creation (things like filters and effects), 3D graphics and more are all very floating point intensive operations due to the maths behind them.

[Kaitain]

Originally Posted by Áedán

In terms of computing, it stands for FLoating point OPeration. That's basically doing any kind of maths involving numbers that are in a "floating point" (IE, not an integer) form.

If you feel like a little light reading, then there is a very thorough doc here:

http://docs.sun.com/source/806-3568/ncg_goldberg.html

I personally find it a bit heavy going. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_point is easier.

The crux of "floating point" is that computers are really, really bad at dealing with decimal places. Whole numbers (integers) are easy. So what floating point units do is to convert a decimal number into three integer numbers:

1.234 as a decimal is 1234 ÷ 1000 in base 10. Computers can handle scientific notation happily: 1234 E-3. This can then be treated as a bunch of integers and other operations performed on them. The computer must then convert it back into a decimal number for display, because 1.234 is more meaningful to us than 1234E-03.

Floating point arithmetic is generally inaccurate, however.

[GrahamGarside]

It's also a term used to describe sega's last two consoles hoho.

[fearless joe]

not to mention a funny way for someone else to enter a swimming pool

[Áedán]

Originally Posted by GrahamGarside

It's also a term used to describe sega's last two consoles hoho.

Actually the Dreamcast is still doing pretty well, given it's not been made for a long while. There's still games coming out on it!