Path: csiph.com!xmission!usenet.csail.mit.edu!news.iecc.com!.POSTED.news.iecc.com!nerds-end From: Philipp Klaus Krause Newsgroups: comp.compilers Subject: Re: ancient floating point, These days what percentage of a CPU's work involves doing arithmetic computations Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2021 18:31:05 +0200 Organization: Compilers Central Lines: 21 Sender: news@iecc.com Approved: comp.compilers@iecc.com Message-ID: <21-07-016@comp.compilers> References: <21-07-004@comp.compilers> <21-07-012@comp.compilers> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Info: gal.iecc.com; posting-host="news.iecc.com:2001:470:1f07:1126:0:676f:7373:6970"; logging-data="20240"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@iecc.com" Keywords: architecture, history, comment Posted-Date: 16 Jul 2021 12:41:00 EDT X-submission-address: compilers@iecc.com X-moderator-address: compilers-request@iecc.com X-FAQ-and-archives: http://compilers.iecc.com Content-Language: en-US In-Reply-To: <21-07-012@comp.compilers> Xref: csiph.com comp.compilers:2684 >> any floating point hardware until the IBM 704 in 1954 > > It is said that the Z3 (1941) was designed with floating-point. > > […] > [I don't think the Z3 was ever built other than as a much later > retrocomputing project.  Von Neumann apparently considered floating > point for the EDVAC and IAS machine but rejected it as too complex > and anyway doing the scaling in software was easy, which it > probably was if you were Von Neumann. -John] AFAIK, the Z1 (built in 1939, working but like many early computers not very reliable, working, destroyed 1944, working replica in a museum in Berlin), the Z3 (built in 1941, destroyed 1943, working replica in a museum in Hünfeld), the Z4 (built 1945, in use until 1959, original in a museum in Munich) and the Z5 (built 1953, in use until 1958, current whereabouts unknown, probably scrapped) all have binary floating-point. Philipp [I've seen the replica Z1, which is entirely mechanical. I didn't realize it used floating point. -John]