Oops, correction:

>          11 bits   - value minus 1023 to produce an exponent in the range
>                         -1023 .. +1024

          [should be -1023 .. +1023, emax=1023]

>                    - 16r000:
>                         significand = 0: Float zero
>                         significand ~= 0: Denormalized number
>                              (exp = -1024, no hidden '1' bit)

                              [should be exp = -1023]


>>        fmax Definition: Report the largest value allowed by the
>>characterized floating point object representation. This satisfies the
>>ISO/IEC 10967 floating point characterization requirement fmax, and is 
>>equal to:

>     (1 - (self radix raisedTo: self precision negated)) *
>          (self radix raisedTo: self emax)


I think this equation is off by a power of 2, or the definition of "emax" 
is wrong:

     (1 - (2 raisedTo: 53 negated)) => number slightly less than 1.0

if we multiply this by (2 raisedTo: 1023) we get

      8.98846567431157e307

which is exactly half the correct value (1.797693134862315e308) 



     -- tim