The Intel 8087 chip: floating-point addition and subtraction
Intel’s 8087 chip, introduced in the early 1980s, added dedicated floating‑point arithmetic to PCs, enabling efficient addition and subtraction of real numbers. It offloaded complex calculations from the main CPU, boosting performance for scientific and engineering applications. The module became a standard component in early IBM PC compatibles, shaping modern computing. Its integration simplified software development and reduced hardware costs.