14 Feb
2001
14 Feb
'01
1:11 p.m.
At 03:49 PM 2/14/01 -0800, Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) wrote:
A friend told me off-list that when copying a file,
there is a graphic
icon of each bit being moved. He suggested that the floating point was
required for the OS due to some MICROS~1 OS programmer being unable to
compute the parabolic trajectory of the bits without using floats.
BTW, 95 will install on the same machine without the FPU (486SX).
Which apps, etc. are different? Or did MICROS~1 simply do the FPU
requirement to reduce the number of performance complaints about their
apps?
You mean to tell me that you've never seen or used contemporary
post-95 Windows, but you feel comfortable criticizing it? Yes,
there's a lame animation when copying files. I can tell you a
number of things wrong with *just that animation* - such as
that it's not actually an accurate depiction of anything.
It doesn't represent bits, bytes, blocks or any actual percentage
of completion in any consistent fashion (between apps)
as far as I can tell, and doesn't adequately represent errors.
I highly doubt the code to do the arc uses floats. There are
only a small number of steps in the animation. I would guess
the tweens are hard-coded.
As for the FPU, if they raised the bar for a minimum
processor to an Intel level that includes an FPU, then they
no longer need to compile code that can either use a software
floating-point library or the hardware FPU. I was looking
over the Windows 2000 requirements today - they only demand
a Pentium 133 as the minimum... and that was the "recommended"
level of system for Windows NT 3.x five-six years ago, as I recall.
- John