To divide by 3, I used a multiplication trick. On tiny devices, division is often implemented as a (slow) library call, but if you’re dividing by a constant, you can usually find a good equivalent fixed-point constant. “One third” in binary is “0.5555…” repeating, so using a 16-bit fixed-point fraction, you can multiply by 0x5556 and shift right 16 bits.
Because shifting right by 16 is the math equivalent of “floor” instead of “round”, so we need the result to be not just “as close to 1/3 as possible”, but the error needs to be on the high side instead of the low side.
Why
0x5556and not0x5555?Because shifting right by 16 is the math equivalent of “floor” instead of “round”, so we need the result to be not just “as close to 1/3 as possible”, but the error needs to be on the high side instead of the low side.
0x5555 * 3 = 0xffff– shifts right to zero0x5556 * 3 = 0x10002– shifts right to oneI’ll add this to the post, thanks!
Thank you!
Because the number 0.555555… is a little closer to 0.5556 than 0.5555. When they say “in binary” I think they mean “in hex” too.
0x0.55555… is closer to 0x0.5555 than 0x0.5556. Remember, 0x0.5 is five sixteenths, significantly less than a half (which would be 0x0.8).
Well corrected! I clearly fluffed that in my head.