Intel 8087 — The Brilliant, Flawed Coprocessor That Changed Computing

Описание: This is the incredible true story of the Intel 8087, a game changing but flawed floating point coprocessor that reshaped modern computing. Watch to learn how a tiny, hand drawn chip that crunched 80 bit numbers gave early PCs a 100x speed boost for decimal math, why its clever register stack created a dangerous overflow problem, and how a miscommunication between design teams left the flaw unpatched as the chip went into production. Key takeaways:
The 8087 solved the slow floating point bottleneck that crippled early scientific software and 3D graphics.
Its radical register stack made math elegant in theory, but caused memory traffic jams and stack overflows in practice.
A cross team assumption meant no one fixed the overflow, forcing awkward software workarounds.
A tiny Israeli team risked everything and turned two working chips per wafer into one of Intel s most profitable products.
The chip s math design helped establish the IEEE 754 floating point standard, which still underpins decimal math across devices today.
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