Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cwjcc!gatech!udel!burdvax!gvlv2!kleonard
From: kleonard@gvlv2.GVL.Unisys.COM (Ken Leonard)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: [really, CISC-to-the-max]
Message-ID: <303@gvlv2.GVL.Unisys.COM>
Date: 18 Aug 89 12:30:16 GMT
References: <38139@stellar.UUCP> <24889@winchester.mips.COM> <846@babbage.acc.virginia.edu> <21353@cup.portal.com>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Unisys Defense Systems, NISD, Great Valley Laboratory
Lines: 17

In article <21353@cup.portal.com> mmm@cup.portal.com (Mark Robert Thorson) writes:
* I remember reading in an old AFIPS paper that von Neumann believed computers
* of the future would all have the SQRT instruction, because of the importance
* of square root in coordinate geometry.

There was at least one model/series/family of IBM machines that _DID_HAVE_
hardware square root--the 70x0/STRETCH.
In fact, it was _REAL_HARDWARE_ sqrt, not microcoded nor some funny use of
the divider hardware.  The sqrt unit was implemented primarily with tunnel-
diode gates and (at the time) a minimum amount of fastest available
transistors.
The divider hardware, but not the multiplier (I think) also used tunnel-diode
gates and the same kind of transistors.  These were, by far, the fastest
transistors in the whole machine, too.
--------
regardz,
Ken