Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!ames!haven!vrdxhq!bdmrrr!rlgvax!golds
From: golds@rlgvax.UUCP (Rich Goldschmidt)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386,comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: What would you use for Fast Floating-Point?
Keywords: Floating-point,Coprocessors
Message-ID: <1216@rlgvax.UUCP>
Date: 27 Jun 89 14:12:48 GMT
References: <2105@randvax.UUCP>
Organization: Computer Consoles Inc, Reston VA
Lines: 24

In article <2105@randvax.UUCP>, edhall@randvax.UUCP (Ed Hall) writes:
> I want to put together a reasonably priced 386-based system which will
> support blindingly fast floating-point calculations.  

> This means something with performance close to 1 MFlop.
> -Ed Hall edhall@rand.org ..!uunet!edhall@rand.org

These are the numbers I have seen, approximately:

386/20MHz  with 80387: 0.4 MFlop  ~$250 (?)
  with Weitek 1167/20: 2.0 MFlop  ~$2500 with software
  32 bit integer math: 2.4 MFlop  your time to convert to integer math
  FP/AP board       : 12.5 MFlop  ~$2500 with software

The FP/AP board above is a floating point array processor for DOS only, from
Eighteen Eight (something like that, if anyone really needs a followup, I will
find all the details from my brochure at home).  The software support appears
to be pretty good based on the brochure I saw:  it comes with a library of 
nearly 500 functions you can call from several different languages.
However, it does not support Unix on a 386/AT.  It can't cope with virtual
memory...

Rich Goldschmidt
uunet!rlgvax!golds  or  golds@rlgvax.uu.net