Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!purdue!bu-cs!mirror!prism!rob
From: rob@prism.TMC.COM
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: 68040 vs 80246 (Was Re: Xerox sues
Message-ID: <206900149@prism>
Date: 19 Dec 89 14:41:00 GMT
References: <18213@netnews.upenn.edu>
Lines: 14
Nf-ID: #R:netnews.upenn.edu:-1821300:prism:206900149:000:668
Nf-From: prism.TMC.COM!rob    Dec 19 09:41:00 1989



>  Does the 040 have the FPU built in? I'm told the memory manager is
>there, but I have heard nothing reliable on the 040. 

   My understanding, based on what little information there is, is that
the 68040 will have a built in FPU that is similar to the Weitek 3167.
That is, it will do simple operations (add, subtract, multiply, divide,
loads, compares) very quickly in hardware, while relying on software 
handlers to execute more complex instructions like transcendentals.

   Of course, until about a year ago, the 80486 FPU was rumored to be
of such a design, too. In reality, the 486's FPU is, except for speed 
improvements, mostly unchanged from the 80387.