- 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.