Matt, sounds like you're thinking of a Table saw - a "cutoff" saw, in my mind, would be more of a MITER saw.
Also, even on a table saw "ripping" is done to WIDTH - cross-cutting would be to length.
One of my fancier miter gauges for my Powermatic table saw has built-in stops and extensions for CROSS-cutting pieces to constant length. Kind of a gimmick, people who use table saws usually know about clamping a small block to the rip fence BEHIND where the cut starts, adjust the rip fence so the distance away from the blade (including that block) is the length you want - that way, you slide the miter gauge back to where the block is clamped, slide the piece up against the block on the fence, hold the piece against the miter gauge, move forward and make the cut - WITHOUT having the piece want to bind up by being trapped between the blade and the fence... Steve