17 Oct
2007
17 Oct
'07
9:32 a.m.
Jules Richardson wrote:
For a math copro to be called as such, does it have to
integrate itself
with the CPU's instruction set - or does some sort of box of tricks
sitting on an I/O port and accessed through normal CPU instructions
count? I'm not sure what the correct definition is.
It does tricks, but then with only 8 opcodes defined on the PDP-8
what do you expect.
What do you mean by 'smallest computer' by the
way? Smallest in terms of
spec? I'm pretty sure some of the 1950's stuff had optional floating
point hardware available, although it wouldn't have been physically
small :)
True, but then they had longer word lengths than a tiny 12 bits.
You are comparing apples and oranges here - late 50's
and 70's
cheers
Jules
Ben.