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It is easy to be confused on this:
- Modes are set by the program (rounding, trap enabling)
- Flags are set as a side effect of an operation
(floating-point overflow)
An overly simplistic view is that modes are read/write
variables to a program, and flags are read/clear only variables.
We defer fuller discussion of modes of (for example) enabling traps
Richard J. Fateman
Wed Aug 12 22:53:48 PDT 1998