80 bit precision ?

[Terry Reedy]

"km" <km at mrna.tn.nic.in> wrote in message 
news:20050514003732.GA4225 at mrna.tn.nic.in...
> Hi all,
>
> does python currently support 80 bit precision  Floating Point Unit ?

Last I read, in CPython, the float type encapsulates a C double.  So, does 
any C compiler implements doubles as 80 bit floats?  Or, if it has 64 bit 
doubles and 80 bit long doubles, are the latter transparently substitutible 
for the former, so that you could change Python's float declaration and 
have everything work as expected?  (I an not sure of either.)

Terry J. Reedy