Software which can use 8087/80287 coprocessor?

[romanon]

Hello, is somewhere some list of software, which can use 8087/80287 coprocessor? I know only autoCAD.

 

[krebizfan]

The previous discussion http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/archive/index.php/t-38292.html covers a good swath of software that used the early Intel numeric coprocessors.

Fractal programs are the best choice for showing off how amazing having an 8087 is. Fool everyone into thinking you have a 386.

 

[HoJoPo]

Falcon 3.0 supported the 80287, if I recall correctly. It enable a more accurate flight model...

 

[Rick Ethridge]

Lotus 1 2 3.

 

[1ST1]

How about the several versions of MS Flightsim? Or Stuntcar-Racer and other early 3D stuff?

 

[Scali]

Falcon 3.0 supported the 80287, if I recall correctly. It enable a more accurate flight model...

Yup, I had an IIT387SX in my 386SX-16 at the time, which made Falcon a lot faster. I believe it also improved some graphics.

 

[Scali]

How about the several versions of MS Flightsim? Or Stuntcar-Racer and other early 3D stuff?

Most 3d games did not use the FPU at all.
For one, most people did not have an FPU anyway, and including FPU code with an emulator was much slower than optimizing the code with fixedpoint integer.

Secondly, early FPUs were quite slow, so even if you had one, it was often faster to use fixedpoint anyway.
You can see the turnaround point when the Pentium arrived. Descent was still optimized for 486, and avoided the FPU.
Quake embraced the new fast, pipelined FPU in the Pentium. Worked great when you actually ran it on a Pentium, but the 486 choked on it.

 

[kaufen]

Lotus 1-2-3 is a spreadsheet program from Lotus Software (now part of IBM). It was the IBM PC's first "killer application", was hugely popular in the 1980s and contributed significantly to the success of the IBM PC.

 

[bobconan]

The previous discussion http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/archive/index.php/t-38292.html covers a good swath of software that used the early Intel numeric coprocessors.

Fractal programs are the best choice for showing off how amazing having an 8087 is. Fool everyone into thinking you have a 386.

That link is dead now. For a site that is for vintage computing they certainly have a hard time maintaining link standards.

 

[stepleton]

IBM's APL interpreter for the PC requires an FPU. Without it, it will lock up the instant you try to do any arithmetic.

 

[Caluser2000]

That link is dead now. For a site that is for vintage computing they certainly have a hard time maintaining link standards.

It was moved over to a different forum platform. That page is still available in the others achive with a little bit of searching.....

 

[modem7]

The 'dead' link in question was probably pointing to the first of the following two threads:

'programs that use the 8087' (Jul 2013)
'What uses a 287 co processor.' (April 2017)