Decimal V Binary??

From: Ed Kelleher <Pres_at_macro-inc.com>
Date: Thu Sep 23 07:05:20 2004

At 07:40 AM 9/23/2004, you wrote:
>I've always wondered what systems/processors (other than IBM mainframes)
>that had hardware decimal arithmetic support. I don't mean 'decimal
>adjust' instructions, I'm talking about full
>add/subtract/multiply/divide/etc. The only other one I know of is the
>Wang VS, which came standard with support for 'packed decimal' data, and
>even floating-point decimal. The Wang VS instruction set was very
>similar to the IBM 360/370, even the packed decimal data format was the
>same.


DEC PDP11/23 CPU has sockets for 2 extra chips (40 pin DIPS).

One is hardware floating point. This is fairly common.

The other for a CIS - Commercial Instruction Set with full set of decimal
instructions as you list.

Never used one though.

Ed K.
Received on Thu Sep 23 2004 - 07:05:20 BST