Hi Warren,
Assume that you can multiply two 8-bit values in
hardware and get a
16-bit result (e.g. ROM lookup table). It's straightforward to use
this to multiply two 16-bit values:
...
But if the hardware can only provide the low eight
bits of the 8-bit
by 8-bit multiply, is it still possible to do a 16-bit by 16-bit
multiply?
Yes. Given hex 8-b numbers ab and cd, use your 8×8=8 hardware multiply
to work out
b × d = BD
a × d = AD
b × c = BC
a × c = AC
and then shift and add:
BD + (AD << 4) + (BC << 4) + (AC << 8)
** Back story. I'm designing an 8-bit TTL CPU
which has 8-bit
multiply, divide and modulo in a ROM table. I'd like to write
subroutines to do 16-bit and 32-bit integer maths.
That's quite an unusual mix. Eight-bit CPUs I can think of either have
no hardware multiply of which to take advantage,
e.g.
http://6502org.wikidot.com/software-math-intmul, or have a 8×8=16.
--
Cheers, Ralph.