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From: mac@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Alex Colvin)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: new instructions
Keywords: fixed, fractional
Message-ID: <1991May20.121708.5023@dartvax.dartmouth.edu>
Date: 20 May 91 12:17:08 GMT
References: <9105200213.AA05095@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
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Organization: Spurious Interrupt, Hanover, NH
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>Fixed point arithmetic is little used now because the hardware to support
>it reasonably well does not exist.  

Would anyone who works with DSPs comment on this?  They seem to be built for
fixed point and fractional arithmetic, with the ALU connected to the registers
through shifters.