Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!uw-june!pardo
From: pardo@june.cs.washington.edu (David Keppel)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Trachtenberg System of Math
Message-ID: <6232@june.cs.washington.edu>
Date: 26 Oct 88 21:20:38 GMT
Reply-To: pardo@cs.washington.edu (David Keppel)
Organization: U of Washington, Computer Science, Seattle
Lines: 17

As a kid I read part of a book called "The Trachtenberg System of
Math" or some such.  The basic idea was that there were several rules
that could be applied to *all* numbers to do *very* fast (linear in
number of digits?) multiplies and multi-row adds.  Unlike the books of
the variety "how to do fast math in your head", this was not just a
collection of tricks useful in certain situations (e.g., to multiply
by 10, just add a zero to the end ...), rather it was a theory.  I've
since forgotten all the details.

I'm sitting here reviewing hardware adders, multipliers, ... and
wondering if anybody has ever tried to apply the Trachtenberg stuff to
computers?  Anybody?

	;-D on  ( Numbered?  *My* days are alphabetical )  Pardo
-- 
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