(I don’t think there’s any point in attempting to be normal. Don’t know about you, but personally I always fail at it anyway, even if I try. So why bother? That energy can be used for more interesting things.)
Happy to have increased your computer history knowledge!
If you mostly touch modern computers, it’s not surprising that you didn’t know, because Intel’s x87 floating-point co-processor is mostly a thing of the past. Since the i486, the floating-point has been integrated into the CPU rather than being a separate chip. You can still issue x87 floating-point instructions to the i486, or even to a modern Intel CPU, though! Nowadays, if you want floating-point stuff, you (or the compiler that compiles your program) will probably use SSE instructions instead. But I heard that some applications where the precision is very important still use x87 because it internally represents the numbers as 80 bit instead of 64 bit.
I forget; was it the 80387 or the 80487 that was just a full-blown DX (as in, FPU included on the die) version of its 80_86SX counterpart with only subtle differences in the pinout so it could disable the onboard main/SX processor socket?
Don’t.
(I don’t think there’s any point in attempting to be normal. Don’t know about you, but personally I always fail at it anyway, even if I try. So why bother? That energy can be used for more interesting things.)
give’em a couple of days before they realize there ain’t anyone normal in this place
I legit didn’t know x87 was a real thing until you made that ama post a few days ago lol
Happy to have increased your computer history knowledge!
If you mostly touch modern computers, it’s not surprising that you didn’t know, because Intel’s x87 floating-point co-processor is mostly a thing of the past. Since the i486, the floating-point has been integrated into the CPU rather than being a separate chip. You can still issue x87 floating-point instructions to the i486, or even to a modern Intel CPU, though! Nowadays, if you want floating-point stuff, you (or the compiler that compiles your program) will probably use SSE instructions instead. But I heard that some applications where the precision is very important still use x87 because it internally represents the numbers as 80 bit instead of 64 bit.
I forget; was it the 80387 or the 80487 that was just a full-blown DX (as in, FPU included on the die) version of its 80_86SX counterpart with only subtle differences in the pinout so it could disable the onboard main/SX processor socket?
Edit: Found it! It was the i487 SX:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwkZz4uwcuQ