this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2024
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[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 10 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Thank you. Didn't know that was a thing. I never had to buy an fpu so it was just built with the cpu so I never learned what it was.

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

What you can by is a ~~FPGU~~ FPGA :)
Basically a lego kit for a CPU you can program for different use cases which dont warrant cpu manufacturing at scale or prototyping

[–] Davel23@fedia.io 12 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Now I really want a lego kit of a mechanical computer. That would be so cool.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 months ago

It got swallowed by CPUs pretty quickly. On 386 it was a real coprocessor: the 387. On 486 it was a whole CPU that disabled the first CPU. The 487 was just a 486 with floating-point built-in.

But it still checked that you had a genuine Intel 486 installed, or it wouldn't run. Because money.