Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!elroy!gryphon!richard
From: richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: 80860 as a math processor
Summary: more stuff on the weitek part
Keywords: Super bit belching
Message-ID: <15147@gryphon.COM>
Date: 26 Apr 89 07:14:31 GMT
Reply-To: richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton)
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 42

In article <33739@kilowatt.uucp> raz@sun.UUCP (Steve -Raz- Berry) writes:
>
>I think we are a little confused here, There is no way that the Weitek
>can possibly emulate a 68881. Not without a major hardware kluge. I think 
>that richard means that the Weitek chip SET (IU and FPU) together function
>simalirly to the 680X0 and coprocessor series.

No, Richard meant it was a co-processor, like the 68881/2. Thats what
the ads implied.

So I called Weitek.

Buggers.

The stupid thing is memory mapped. You write the operands into
memory addresses, then give it an operation, then poll it for
completion. Some co-processor.

Some performence data: 

Linpack - single precision 8 MFLOPS
	  double           6 MFLOPS
Whenstone Single precision 2.0 MWhets (is that what he said ? Mwhets ?)
	  Double           1.2

How do these figures compare with '881/2 and 860 ?

Some interesting stuff about this part - it doesnt exist. It seems
Weitek has a nice math chip, the 3116 or something like that. They
sell a daughtorboard that has some glue logic and this chip
for use with the 386. What they have for the 68000 is a board
that uses the 3116 and some glue.

Every time I pumped him for information, he pumped me
wanting to know how many i needed, so thay could make their 
projections and deicide to make this chip or not.

Hell, I told 'em 10,000. Couldnt hurt. Weitek is in Sunnyvale.

-- 
               ``Bring me the head of fettucini alfredo''
richard@gryphon.COM  decwrl!gryphon!richard   gryphon!richard@elroy.jpl.NASA.GOV