Re: Floating point emulation

[mfb@mbunix.mitre.org (Michael F Brenner)]

Frank LoPinto wrote:

Frank wrote:
>>Where can I get a 80x87 math co-processor emulation package that I can
>>link into my application?

Mike wrote:
> Is this an arbitrary restriction by an ivory tower? Or have you
> costed out the cost of upgrading the chip to have a floating point
> unit versus the cost of emulating floating point in software?

Frank Replied:
    > No this is not an Ivory Tower restriction, in fact it is very much a
    > "real world" restriction.
    > I am using and embedded version of the 80186, formally the 80186EB. The
    > system in which this processor resides will be placed on a helicopter.
    > We do not have an FPU beacuse of weight and power consumption
    > restrictions placed on the total system. There is no room. What is more,
    > the hardware is done. I have no choices with regards to harware.

Mike Explains:
Sorry I was not clear enough what I meant by Ivory Tower. In my 
opinion, one of the symptoms of Ivory Tower restrictions is crytallizing 
the hardware before the software is done, and this is not a criticism
of any one particular program, since so many of ourprograms do this. It is
just an observation that we would be better without such restrictions. When
engineers believe they are not permitted to cost alternatives, then what
they are doing is not engineering, but a form of politics, that sometimes
results in system failures.