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DIVIDERS

Chapter 6 shows that division is somewhat more intricate than the other three basic arithmetic operations. In the earliest computer applications, division was most often implemented as an assembly language program using the other arithmetic operations as primitives. Such was the case for multiplication too in elementary pioneer processors. The progress of technology together with increasing user needs have motivated designer efforts toward faster implementations of most arithmetic functions in general, and division in particular. This chapter presents implementations of the two most important classes of division algorithms, namely, digit recurrence (one digit at a time) and convergence types.