23 Sep
2022
23 Sep
'22
6:46 p.m.
OK, the web is your friend.
Looks like it has applications in cryptography, or searching thru text:
https://cryptome.org/jya/sadd.htm
________________________________
From: Chuck Guzis via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, September 23, 2022 11:28 AM
To: Randy Dawson via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Cc: Chuck Guzis <cclist(a)sydex.com>
Subject: [cctalk] Re: Minicomputer front panel.
On 9/23/22 11:14, Randy Dawson via cctalk wrote:
On the top secret number cruching....
The Cray had an instruction called 'population count'
asked for by the NSA.
The number of bits on in a word, not sure what this was used for.
The CDC 6600 had a dedicated functional unit for this instruction.
Wasted a lot of time trying to think up practical uses for it--totting
up disk block allocation bitmaps was perhaps the most useful.
--Chuck