- try to identify Mr. Garish and Mr. Powell
- Reverse-engineering the division microcode in the Intel 8086 processor (righto.com)
While programmers today take division for granted, most microprocessors in the 1970s could only add and subtract — division 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 integer multiplication and division. Internally, the 8086 still performed a loop, but the loop was implemented in microcode: faster and transparent to the programmer. Even so, division was a slow operation, about 50 times slower than addition.
- I was introduced to the Duke of York19 and Lord Jim, both of whom are superior to any Indians I have yet met. An old man named Larkinum was chief of the Clallams, but he abdicated in favor of his son, the Duke. Lord Jim is very intelligent and can speak English quite well. He took a great deal of pride in showing me some papers he had received from different whites, principally sea captains. I was much amused at their contents for most of them abused him without reserve, calling him a liar, a thief, a drunkard and a gambler. Some of them were curious literary productions, abounding in flowers of speech. Lord Jim, of course, imagined these certificates of his rascality to contain nothing but praise, and begged me to add mine to the number, which, I think, will help him as much as any of the others. I procured a Skagit Indian named Goliah to act as guide. I think he will do well.