- Cranes are a type of large bird with long legs and necks in the biological family Gruidae of the order Gruiformes. The family has 15 species placed in four genera which are Antigone, Balearica, Leucogeranus, and Grus. They are large birds with long necks and legs, a tapering form, and long secondary feathers on the wing that project over the tail. Most species have muted gray or white plumages, marked with black, and red bare patches on the face, but the crowned cranes of the genus Balearica have vibrantly-coloured wings and golden “crowns” of feathers. Cranes fly with their necks extended outwards instead of bent into an S-shape and their long legs outstretched.
- Die analysis of the 8087 math coprocessor’s fast bit shifter (righto.com)
Floating-point numbers are very useful for scientific programming, but early microprocessors only supported integers directly. Although floating-point was common in mainframes back in the 1950s and 1960s, it wasn’t until 1980 that Intel introduced the 8087 floating-point coprocessor for microcomputers. Adding this chip to a microcomputer such as the IBM PC made floating-point operations up to 100 times faster. This was a huge benefit for applications such as AutoCAD, spreadsheets, or flight simulators. The downside was the 8087 chip cost hundreds of dollars.