Man, as a younger cat who first got into computers around 2010, seeing all of these old school CPUs with ZERO cooling solutions literally being removed with a miniature crowbar is otherworldly! haha i love this channel, so rich in PC history!

Thank you to your subscriber who lent you the chip. Now we can have our cake and eat it. By the way having the "487" and the weitek at the same time was a nice fix. And one of the rarest setups of all time.

You are answering all the questions I had back in the day

The absolute undisputed #1 channel for all CPU knowledge!!!

New intro is so.... retro :D Fits the topic of the channel :D

I always wondered what the Weitek option was in the BIOS of old 386 machines! Thank you for explaining it. I was also curious how the performance of those benchmarks are on 486 and Pentium machines. Had intel already passed Weitek with their newer chips?

The March 1988 edition of Byte magazine has as the main subject and discusses the Weitek and includes the C source for the beachball benchmark.

Your voice is so calming that it helps me chill out when I’m stressed. Thank you for making such amazing content

Great video, I was not even aware of this chip. Nice combo with the RapidCAD too. I want one of these PGA removal tools.

Awesome video. As a kid growing up with Weitek in the BIOS this explains a lot. Still, a Am386 DX40 with Cyrix FasMath 387 would put that Weitek to shame. History is fascinating.

I'm curious if the Phong demo will speed up with the rapidcad. (such as the weitek runs faster because of the better cpu)

Love the new video intro. Intriguing set of chips and quite attractive. I would love to see it working in a CAD programme. Must have been the hot-shot chip to have in those days. 👍😊

Wow... I never knew you could run both co-processors. A great video as usual 😎

I remember the days when these processors were for sale. I think they had some double or triple the price of a 387. And the 387 was not cheap either. Both chips were absolutely necessary for CAD, as it took hours to turn a complicated wire model of a cathedral 180 degrees without a coprocessor.

" THE SPEED OF A $40,000 WORKSTATION, FROM A PC."

I was waiting for that comparison since 30 years! Ty!

This makes you wonder if there would’ve been any software available to take advantage of two FPU’s? Because as demonstrated, this setup is capable of parallel processing - in fact, you could say it is a 387 times three.

Great video again, I Weited for this!

Great video. You answered questions which I have since decades in my head. lol

You could have tested the 67fonge and the 87fonge in the Rapidcad+Weitek configuration in one go, without swapping chips. Also it is always a bit suspicious when the test and comparison software is from the company who wants his product to be the superior, too bad you could not find a 3rd party test program.

I always have to laugh when I see "Keyboard Error! Press F1" xD

Fascinating video. I remember seeing the Weitek advertised but never realised it was a completely different type of FPU.

Love these tech vids. 👍

This is awesome! I remember reading about this chip in Byte Magazine back in the 80s or early 90s, but never been able to see one in real life. Really cool chip. Many thanks to the viewer who lent you the chip, and you for showing it running. :)

Du hast echt coole Videos, immer weiter so!

I'm amazed that you're able to find all these rare chips seemingly with ease! Another great video!

Ahh the FPU. I wanted one for my 486SX and didnt even know why. The first time that I actually saw the need for an FPU was when trying run Quake.

I love this channel! You got me with the box opening though, I thought maybe you were about to do an LGR style opening and cause all sorts of collector rage :)

OMG so early! But I really love your new intro!

Wow.. that trident 512k splash brings back so many good memories!

Love the new intro!

Very kind of Stefan to lend you the chip. Someone else mentioned the oscillator already :-)

This video is really interesting, congratulations. It reminds me of how great it was to work with ms-dos and what a computer really is

Again, very well done! ☆☆☆☆☆ Thanks for sharing. :-) With best wishes, St.

Very nice VLOG !! I will not be the only one when I write that we want more !!! :) and I am glad that I am not alone in being crazy about old CPUs

OCing back in the day, swap out crystals. good times.

One of the applications that probably would support this is Wolfram Mathematica. Wolfram Research is listed as one of the companies that produces compatible software, and Mathematica was their flagship product. Definitely worth checking out if you ever come back to this channel!

Excellent work!

Thanks for this excellent footage of a processor i never heard of before. Very interesting stuff. Impressed by the speed they achieved compared to Intel. I am always curious with what kinda video footage you show up with next. Cheers!

I remember these. We had them in the high end Sun workstations. Thanks for the memories.

Super interesting video and well done! The "Weitek" was mentioned in an game "StarBlade", if i remenber correctly.

I never heard of anything similar back in these days. Thanks, Internet.

Excellent video!

Thank you so much for this video 👍🏻👌🏻✌🏻

Awesome video! The Weitec FPU at only 25Mhz really surprised me on how much faster it really is compared to that Intel 25 MHz as well. I can only imagine how much faster that FPU chip would be if it could have been used at the 33 megahertz or even a 40 megahertz version was available at the same time Intel or AMD making a chip like Intel's rapid CAD that could have been at 40 megahertz instead of just the AMD 386 DX 40Mhz alone since that chip does not have a FPU in it. Even the Cyrix 386 to 486 66Mhz upgrade and a Weitec FPU running at 66mhz (would need a 133 MHz Crystal)would have been awesome. Sad that Weitec chip did not have better software support other then mostly CAD like software. That really could have really pushed the 386 even more(the ultimate 386) during the 486 days, but sadly it was not ment to be. Great video and thank you.

The design - on the box and even the chip itself - is a delight.

700+ views, no thumbs down! Quality indeed

Well damn - I have to say that your (new) intro is impressive! Your videos are great, I think we all would like it if you made more videos more often! I'll send you a CPU from Germany if you vow to make videos more often :)

Thanks for the memories. I have a Compaq 386/20 and installed a daughterboard with a 387 and Weitek on it. I seem to recall around a 5x speed improvement for a chain of multiply/divide instructions. I did not have any compatible software for it so I wrote some test programs in assembly. One was a Mandelbrot generator. It was about 4 to 5x the speed of the 387. I didn't go any further with practical uses. Just a hobbyist around 1986.

Have you ever seen a computer with a 385 cache controller? Back in the day I shortly worked on a Digital workstation with 385/386/387 chips in it and the whole machine was bizarre. Tons of extra cards for memory and such and some form of internal early SCSI for the hard drive. The original 386DX didn't have L1 cache and I assume that's what the 385 provided in an efficient fashion. Later caches were incorporated to motherboard controllers? I always wondered how much computational capacity boost it provided.

i really love that new intro

Great video! I Wish I had one of these Weitek coprocessors (or a Cyrix EMC87) and make a custom build of FastDoom and check if it makes the framerate even better!

Thanks for the interesting video! I have the very same unopened package of a 3167-025 here but never used it in my 386 PC. There was another way to use both the 387 and the Weitek chip at the same time. There were little daughterboards available that were used to put both chips on the socket for the coprocessor at the same time. I have a Weitek 3002-0052-0 here but unfortunately one of the last owners desoldered some parts and also the pins were bent.

Oh, new intro! ❤️

another great video

nostalgic..ran autocad 9 & 12..with this os.😁😁😁

This video explains something that puzzled me many years ago! I was at a computer fair in the early 90's and I saw one of the sellers had some random motherboards one of which looked like it had 2 processor sockets on ir... I asked the seller about it, and he said "no, its for the maths chip" which at the time I thought was strange because to my knowledge at the time coprocessor sockets were smaller than the processor socket. So probably this board was one for the Weitek or something similar!

Came accros your youtube channel and found this very interesting video about the Witek CoProseccor - Fun fact. Olivetti actually made a computer that holds both the Intel x387 socket as well as a socket for the Weitek - Olivetti M380-40 - Intel 80386DX - On my channel I show this computer. Keep up your very interesting content. You have now a new subscriber.

I recall these Weiteks were very expensive, what would the price have been back in the day? And how much cheaper was a 387?

Neat. I pulled a Weitek chip like this out of a Sun box about 15 years ago. I figured it was Sun-specific so I think it just ended up in a box of curiosities. Maybe I'll scrounge around and see if I can find it... and then maybe some software for it.

That into feels like I'm watching a period correct documentary on these kinds of chips, very fitting.

Seeing the Present, Weitek 1167 screen was the equivalent of watching the T-800, Sarah, and John Connor entering Cyberdyne Systems

Beautiful boxed example! Where did you find that?!?!?

That opening SoundFX though. Hnnnnggg.

The placement of the 8th memory slot looks funny. :)

Wow, that ball looks exactly like in the AIBB Benchmark for Amiga!

Is that cool RapidCAD compatible with common boards of the same socket? That's a awesome chip. I've seen that chip on your channel before, but I didnt know that's what it had inside.

The fact that the Weitek 3167 even existed as an alternative was a motivating factor for inclusion of an FPU in the 486DX. If it was standard, Intel figured software would be compiled for it (and it was), largely driving Weitek out of the market because the "free" FPU was plenty good enough for most purposes and very well supported because it could safely be assumed to exist. By the time the 486sx came out without the FPU, the war was already over. Intel has never liked being shown up on their own turf, and has always shown itself willing to use strong-arm tactics to avenge such losses. Just ask AMD.

I wonder if you could do some clever programming to interleave using both accelerators to get even more speed in programs.

I always wondered what that oversized Co-pro socket was for on my 386.

Very interesting! I was always curious about the Weitek co-processor back in the day. Now I know more about it. Thanx! PS: I just found out about your channel a few weeks ago and binge watched all your videos! 😄

I wonder if I can get a Zen 3 R9 and at to it a Weitek Abacus. I also wonder if designers of the 387 DX thought it was just as important to save memory even when they add floating point power.

Yet another chip that I've always opted to only observe from a distance, indeed due to the lack of software that uses them. Very nice to see one running and I like your pronunciation of "Weitek" too, "Vytek". I don't suppose your testing with the RapidCAD was too far off, given plenty of early 486 boards had a Weitek socket (in that case, for a 4167, of course) so you kinda ended up with a scaled-down version of that. Mildly curious as to how the 3167 and 4167 compare.

Aha the weitek edition, like i mention that in the i387 video. Thank you.

How about that...I may at one time, when I was young, messed with a 386 machine set up like this because I do believe I have booted a PC computer that showed the "Present" for the 387 FPU and the name Weitek pop up in the boot up.......Um.... sweet! I love this channel :)

Maybe you know - I recently benchmarked an i487 SX - What speed is it supposed to run at? I ran mine at 25 and 33 MHz and it was stable.

There were daughterboards that made it possible to attach a 387 as well as the Weitek chip to the socket at the same time. I got one when i bought my Weitek from eBay, but unfortunately it has bend and missing legs and some components, perhaps SMD caps are missing.

I like your channel as well as retro hardware. But why do you show the box to us to not open it?

Cool new intro.

Did Weitek has been supported by 3D Studio (1, 2,3), or by Autodesk by general?

I am 95% sure that Autodesk 3D Studio 2 supports weitek and that alluring install option was what triggered my curiosity back then. Plenty of opportunity for nice real-world render examples if you wanna revisit the topic one day. Also, I believe the weitek only supported single-precision floating point which may have hindered its popularity as it often is not enough for engineering/science (but fine for ray tracing, wire frame drawings, etc... at least back then). This could possibly also explain some of the speed increase as the weitek would then only need to process a 24 bit mantissa (32-bit float), whereas the x87 used full 64 bit mantissa internally (80-bit float) for all operations. Thank you for the video.

Both BIOS and Sysinfo report RapidCAD-1 as 80386 but wiki says it is 80486DX. Is there a way to check this CPU for particular 486 support (extended opcodes)?

I had a motherboard with a socket for a Weitek. I never saw a Weitek for sale here though.

There does exist a socket adapter permitting both 387 and Weitek to be installed but I was never able to find one for sale.

would been nice to see what comes in the box, but yeah such a rare thing such be left alone, if you could run the RapidCAD cpu and Weitek copro at 33mhz then you'd probably have the best most expensive 386 back in its day, where the limited software support for the weitek fails u can still fall back on the 387 in the rapidCAD cpu.

compiler support?

So thats what that bios option was for. if it was compatble with 8087 instructions i'm guessing it would be more commonlly available but performance probably wouldn't be as good

I will subscribe...

I have a Magitronic 486-based system which actually happens to have the required 142-pin socket to support the Weitek 4167. While the original CPU was upgraded to an Am5x86-P75 with an interposer, im debating whether to fill the 4167 slot with the Weitek, just for completionist’s sake. If you want the motherboard model, it’s MAGITRONIC A-B435.

I'm surprised a Weitek can beat the RapidCAD FPU. Even more surprised that a 3167 can work together with it.

I think when it comes to FPU support a lot of people mention autocad all the time. But I think wolfram mathematica should have also been quite common and is often overlooked.

The only experience I had with one was a fella who used one for code compiling. We tried to do a decent comparison to my fasmath which i ran at 33mhz to his 25, but we were unable to find software that could give a decent representation. Anecdote at the time was weitek optimization was all over the place. On some software packages it was not much better or even worse than an intel x87 and on others it may be 3x. And what small bits we found to compare were either unable to work properly on my Fasmath or didn't show his weitek in a proper light. Some code compilers of the day hated my Fasmath and would often crash. I also remember reading at some point of a patch for the windows 3.1 version of photshop for using a weitek but good luck finding it. And photoshop has very mixed code anyhow so its gains over an x87 may not be all that great... I think I am willing to concede that the benchmarks provided from weitek are probably not cherry picked to a big degree, and pretty honest. And it would be fair to say that under fairly normal conditions the weitek at about 2x of a 387, give or take. What few usable results me and the other guy managed to get seemed to show this. Our particular case showed about %50 advantage to him over my particular setup.. I also had more L2 Cache than he did if i recall. So very impressive achievement to say the least. But from my observation the Weitek was pretty much DOA. As it had no meaninful software support in its first year and its price was hard to justify over a 387 when you include the loss of compatibility and inability to run both at the same time on all but really specialized workstations. Most design artists I knew used more than one application which required hardware floating point. And within very short order the 486DX came out which pretty much sealed its fate. It never stood a chance. Its only real success was with some institutions which latched onto it from day 1 and developed their own extremely specialized and tight software stacks around it while still needing x86 compatability. And when they had the will and talent to optimize for it, you got a 3-5x increase in performance over what was possible on a 387. And such a thing would have been the best bang for the buck for at least a couple of years. It may have even been possible to also build workstations that could make use of several of them in concurrency. Though I do not know of any that did.. By that point the cost would have probably been prohibitive and you would have been within reach of a MIPS system with similar performance.

I wish I had the money to pursue this type of thing, I adore all the old X86 stuff but man the prices for things now are nuts and I live in a nation with the most idiotic laws that prevent people from pulling stuff out of their local dump before it all goes to landfill, Skips, full of archaic machines, Korg/Roland Keyboards, it has all been within 12 feet of me when dropping off my own rubbish, but they wont let you touch so much as a screw of it.

So this seems to be the missing piece of my puzzle, I think. Back in the days I had an Cyrix 486DLC (I know now this is basically a 386, at least a 386 Mainboard was used) and I always got the message at startup "Weitek Coprocessor not present". Never could be bothered by this message, but now I know my mainboard could have used this coprocessor, if I ever needed it, right?

Oh my god this box looks super familiar

I dug up a strange card from AST that has both a socket for the 387 as well as the enhanced socket from the looks of it. Part number is 202347, you might get somewhere with that.

nice new intro :)

Hello. do you have intel 485 chip in collection? i have an EPSON server motherboard with 486 and 485

My 486 motherboad has an weitek socket even it was an 486DX processor.

I think, if I remember good, I have somewhere a motherboard with two copro sockets , but a dip one for 287 and a square one for 387.