1980/01/01 by J. Palmer · 16 citations
Computer Science · #Numerical Methods and Algorithms #Parallel Computing and Optimization Techniques #Embedded Systems Design Techniques #Computer science #Interface (matter) #Embedded system #Software #Reliability (semiconductor) #Operating system #Parallel computing #Power (physics)
paper · pdf · doi:10.1145/1500518.1500674
openalex publication_date 1980/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
The INTEL® 8087 is a high performance general purpose numeric data processor. It is used with the INTEL® 8086, or the INTEL® 8088, microprocessors to extend their instruction sets with over 100 instructions (not counting addressing mode). The 8087 has all of the 8086 addressing modes and through a coprocessing interface is able to execute numeric instructions concurrently with the 8086 (or 8088). The high performance overlapped execution is transparent to the user who sees the 8087 simply as an extension of the 8086 (8088). Furthermore, the 8087 is the only chip that must be added to an 8086-based system to provide numerics capability with a performance enhancement over software of more than 100. In addition to high performance, great care was taken to ensure that the 8087 could be used in any application involving numbers---including commercial calculations. This required an unprecedented level of accuracy and reliability to be built into the processor. The intent was to greatly simplify the production of high performance but reliable numeric software.