RE: Have you read this?

["Shaw, David" <dshaw@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: leif@attglobal.net [mailto:leif@attglobal.net]

> except that on some (all?) AS/400 models, the PowerPC floating point
> unit is disabled while running OS/400. So the calculations would run
> very slowly with emulated floating point operations.
> ---------------
> I find it a little difficult to believe that Rochester would design what
they
> call "IBM's fastest floating point processor" for the old Muskie chip sets
and
> then turn the thing off in all of those 530 and 53S machines.  Maybe the
FPU's
> are turned off in low-end machines - that would be about par for the way
IBM
> screws us over to create their bloody "price points" - but in all models?
That
> doesn't seem reasonable.

I have actually only confirmed this on low-end modes. I don't know about
the high-end (that why the 'all' had a ? next to it). I was hoping from some
input from IBM lurkers on this.

About the fast FPU, don't forget that it is also used on AIX.
---------------------------

That's true of the current Northstar microprocessors, but was NOT true of the
old Muskie chip sets - they were AS/400 only.  Certainly the Muskie FPU
technology has been re-used in more recent IBM offerings, but it was originally
designed with the AS/400 as the only target, at least according to "Inside the
AS/400 Second Edition".


Dave Shaw
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