The status of investigations into the use of continued fractions for computer hardware

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that representations of numbers other than positional notation may lead to practical hardware realizations for the digital calculation of classes of algorithms. It is the authors' opinion that practicality of the use of continued products has been demonstrated. This paper describes current research in the use of continued fractions. Although practicality has not been demonstrated, theoretical results are promising, and the results thus far are presented as a case study of the difficulties which arise when use of a new representation is attempted.