8 Mar
2011
8 Mar
'11
10:57 a.m.
You forgot one.
Northstar* S100 system had an optional FPB it did BCD math (ADD, SUB,
MUL, DIV) for two operand of 2 to 14 BCD digits. It was much faster than
could be done with software in the Z80.
I 'forgot' many more than one, I can assure you. Thre was that AM9511
chip that was interefaced to many machines (I have seen an Apple ][ card
with it on).
I am not sure that counts, though. It didn't really extend the normal
processor instrcuton set, rather it was a periphral for doing arithmetic.
EAE was PDP-8
Maybe I've mis-remeebred the name. There was a hex-height Unibus board
(jsut one obard) that was a hardware integer multiplier and divider. It
was used with PDP11s that didn't ahve EIS (11/04, 1/05, etc) and it
required special software support. It didn't add to the processor
instruciton set, rahter you wrote the operands to particular I/O
addreses and read the results back in the same way.
I am pretty sure RT11 Fortran could use it.
-tony