Re: Re: (\ x 0) revisited, revisited, revisited

[Glenn S. Burke <GSB at MIT-ML>]

No, the whole point of this proposal is that the "right" thing to do
is not to cause an error for a zero divisor, but to check for that
and "do the right thing".  This is predicated on the premise that for
the REMAINDER operation, a 0 divisor has a defined result.
(Presumably someone else once thought this, given that the REMAINDER
function has this check.)

The \ function is not an interface to the second value returned by the
IDIV instruction.  Our semantics are just that the interpreted version
will behave compatibly with the compiled one.  If it takes an extra
couple of instructions to do it right, then great.  (HAULONG takes a
couple instructions, as do some of the fix-float conversions.)