Why doesn’t hardware support decimal arithmetic directly?
Most computer architectures other than ‘pure RISC’ machines do, in fact, provide some form of decimal arithmetic instructions or support. These include the Intel x86 architecture (used in PCs), the Motorola 68x architecture and its derivatives (used in Apple’s earlier machines and the Palm Pilot), the IBM System z (the descendents of the IBM/360 family), the HP PA-RISC architecture, and most general-purpose microprocessors.
