Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!mmm
From: mmm@cup.portal.com (Mark Robert Thorson)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Claimed bug in 80286
Message-ID: <21352@cup.portal.com>
Date: 16 Aug 89 20:27:32 GMT
References: <1989Aug13.023601.594@utzoo.uucp> <310@hitech.ht.oz>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 14

clyde@hitech.ht.oz.au says:
> 
> Apart from anything else programming around the union of all previous
> bugs may be impossible since it is not uncommon for bugs in different
> releases of a chip to be mutually incompatible, e.g. the workaround for
> a bug in version ABC.123 may fall foul of a different bug in version
> ABF.456. In this situation the best approach is usually to steer totally
> clear of all areas suspected of being buggy. Mind you this gets hard when
> some of the bugs are in areas which are totally indispensable.

The 386 and beyond have both device type and mask stepping numbers which
appear in one of the registers (DX, I believe) following reset initialization.
I think the 286 also had this.  Obviously, all computer architectures should
incorporate this feature.