alt Hacker NewsI can't remember, could you buy a math coprocessor for it?
I know my 286 you could pair with a 287 next to it.. not sure if it really made a difference you could discern outside of hyper-specific uses though.
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hypercube33 • today at 3:14 PM
I believe so the 487 which had a full 486 on board it and disabled your main CPU.
There were 387 co-pros, just like the 287s (ad 8087s). You could actually use a 287 to provide floating-point instructions to a 386, albeit more slowly than a 387.
Very little, if any, “home” or small-business software would make use of a floating-point unit though (maybe some spreadsheet apps did?). The most common use for them was CAD/CAM, and those doing scientific modelling without a budget that would allow for less consumer-grade kit.