Re: New Math Coprocessor - who has a need for it???

[toddpw@ugcs.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel)]

blasjw@ntmtv.com (Joseph Blas) writes:

>  1 Special purpose hardware for high-speed conversion of binary real
>    memory operands to and from the internal extended format.

This improves the operand loading phase, which is a good chunk of the FPE
style emulation packages.

>  2 Reduced coprocessor interface overhead to increase throughtput.

Depending on whether that overhead makes a difference when you're talking
to it over the 1mhz Apple bus, this might or might not make a difference.
Dicking around with the coprocessor interface with 1mhz cycles is the worst
part about using these cards in an Apple -- loading the data in and out
probably takes longer than the actual calculations do!

Todd Whitesel
toddpw @ ugcs.caltech.edu