Of course I heard of Control data - I once took a class where the final exam
required being able to explain the purpose of every wire on a discrete
transistor CDC computer was for. The computer replaced by the VAX in my
previous post was a CDC Cyber 76.

However, the point is not that SOME computers had FPUs, it was that most
computers DID NOT have FPUs, or they were slow and/or expensive, and thus
software floating point and fixed point math had to be implemented by the
application programmers.

You can claim the DG machines were primarily used for "accounting," and it may
even be so, but I worked in Astronomy and Space Sciences at the Smithsonian
(located at Harvard) and at MIT; I can assure you that in the mid '70s the labs
were filled with DG machines, because they gave the most bang for the buck.
My first "home computer" (in 1980) was an old DG 1200, followed quickly by a DEC
11/23. I still have the faceplate from the Nova.


"JAXAshby" wrote in message
...
jeffies, data general machines were *accounting* machines, so therefore used
integer calc (it is faster).

Intel makes MICROprocessors.

Floating point machines date from the 1950's. Ever hear of Control Data?

[snip a bunch of trivia dating from 35 years later]