- Reverse-engineering the multiplication algorithm in the Intel 8086 processor (righto.com)
While programmers today take multiplication for granted, most microprocessors in the 1970s could only add and subtract — multiplication required a slow and tedious loop implemented in assembly code. One of the nice features of the Intel 8086 processor (1978) was that it provided machine instructions for multiplication, able to multiply 8-bit or 16-bit numbers with a single instruction. Internally, the 8086 still performed a loop, but the loop was implemented in microcode: faster and transparent to the programmer. Even so, multiplication was a slow operation, about 24 to 30 times slower than addition.
- Abraham Lincoln (allthetropes.org)
That guy who won the American Civil War, proclaimed the slaves free, delivered the Gettysburg Address and was shot dead at the theatre. He’s also known for wearing a top hat and being very tall (the tallest president, in fact, at six feet four inches), and when he for a brief time took direct control of the Union army, showed himself to be a talented military strategist as well. A genial and charming speaker, Lincoln had an uncanny ability to explain complex issues in layman’s terms, and his speeches are among the most famous in American history. Considered an untested and possibly radical figure, he is famous for Growing the Beard in office. In many ways he’s the only post-Founding Fathers/ pre-Teddy Roosevelt President who’s thought of at all. He is almost universally considered to be one of the greatest (if not the greatest) Presidents in American history.