Thanks Andy, I did a quick search and came up with the following article
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.09/myhrvold_pr.html
Which mentions the BCD thing. Does anyone have any links to the basic
research behind this work?

Thanks

Andy

----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Warren" <aiw@CYPRESS.COM>
To: <PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Sent: Monday, March 18, 2002 7:15 PM
Subject: Re: [EE]: Brute force algorithm optimization (was: xor trick)


>
> That was a reference to a Nathan Myhrvold interview I read a year or
> two ago... In the interview, Mr. Myhrvold mentioned (and seemed very
> proud of) a BCD math routine that Microsoft had "discovered" through
> that sort of brute-force algorithm development.
>
> The interesting thing is that, as far as I can tell, their "new"
> algorithm was actually in use at least 40 years ago.  Perhaps if
> Microsoft's high-powered computer scientists had ever written
> assembly code for small microcontrollers, they'd have a bit more of
> the "old knowledge".
>

--
http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic:
[PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads