RE: Integers outperform Packed in a big way

["DeLong, Eric" <EDeLong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hmm, perhaps, but firmware is not hardware....  

This article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POWER6 contains the following statement:

"Unlike the servers from IBM's competitors, the POWER6 has hardware support for decimal arithmetic and will include the first decimal floating-point unit integrated in silicon. More than 50 new floating point instructions handle the decimal math and conversions between binary and decimal.[7] This is a feature being added to the processors powering IBM's System z.[8]"

Eric

-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of James Lampert
Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2008 12:57 PM
To: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: Re: Integers outperform Packed in a big way


DeLong, Eric wrote:

> Regardless, there has never (to my knowledge) been a hardware BCD
> processor in the i platform....  IBM optimized the system to prefer
> dealing with packed, but it is a software implementation....

Remember, the original IMPI implementation of the AS/400 was on a CISC 
component CPU. It could (and presumably did) have hardware or firmware 
implementations of whatever the hell IBM Rochester wanted.