# The Floppy Disk of Floating Point

DevFeed: [The Floppy Disk of Floating Point](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/the-floppy-disk-of-floating-point-37901.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.evanmiller.org/the-floppy-disk-of-floating-point.html>)

Author: Evan Miller

Published: 2020-07-13T13:35:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Evan Miller](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/evan-miller.md>)

Topics: [Computing](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/computing.md>), [floating-point](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/floating-point.md>), [x86](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/x86.md>), [Assembly](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/assembly.md>), [cpu](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/cpu.md>)

Tags: [architecture](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/architecture.md>), [assembly](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/assembly.md>), [computing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/computing.md>), [cpu](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/cpu.md>), [floating-point](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/floating-point.md>), [precision](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/precision.md>), [standard](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/standard.md>), [x86](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/x86.md>)

## AI overview

An essay reflecting on the x87 floating-point instruction set and its 80-bit extended-precision design. It describes the architecture's historical hardware support for mathematical functions and considers its eventual obsolescence.

## Source excerpt

An essay that bids farewell to x87, a computing architecture too long for this world: The Floppy Disk of Floating Point