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From: gillies@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Why FP at all? (was: Re: Killer
Message-ID: <3300181@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 12 Sep 90 01:27:00 GMT
References: <90@<STEPHEN>
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Nf-From: m.cs.uiuc.edu!gillies    Sep 11 20:27:00 1990


/* Written  9:59 pm  Sep  6, 1990 by stephen@estragon.uchicago.edu in m.cs.uiuc.edu:comp.arch */
> But it does seem to me that most cycles really do go on operating
> systems and user interface, and putting integrated floating point into
> a silly little workstation like a Sparc or an 80486 machine is serious
> overkill.

My favorite device-independent screen language is display postscript
(is there another one that is device independent?).  This is user
interface code.  Display Postscript really beats up on a floating
point chip.

Once we have all machines running floating point, I think a whole new
class of applications will emerge to take advantage of this feature.
Remember, the software development biz is now dominated by the common
denominator (typically PC's).  Most floating-point intensive
applications are unthinkable on today's integer workstation.