Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!aplcen!samsung!cs.utexas.edu!texbell!sugar!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: 386 machines are workstations? Message-ID: Date: 25 May 90 17:09:29 GMT References: <1990May13.165810.26723@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <634@sibyl.eleceng.ua.OZ> <21440@megaron.cs.arizona.edu> <6327@scolex.sco.COM> <6363@scolex.sco.COM> Reply-To: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Lines: 19 In article <6363@scolex.sco.COM> seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan) writes: > In article meissner@osf.org (Michael Meissner) writes: > >But this is all invisable at the user level. The new mode is in > >kernel space. As long as you treat all pointers as 32-bit quanities, > So a user can't do something like > movl (0xabcddead),r0 You're usually a pretty cool dude, Sean. Why are you suddenly going into hair-splitting mode here? In practical terms, machines like the 68000 and the 32000 are compatible across the board. There's no compelling reason to use the new instructions, because you get nearly as good performance without them. Outside of the O/S itself, you really can't tell the difference. The 80x86 is a whole different ball of wax, because earlier processors are emulated rather than being a subset of the new one. Running old code instead of recompiling causes severe performance degradation. -- `-_-' Peter da Silva. +1 713 274 5180. 'U` Have you hugged your wolf today? @FIN Dirty words: Zhghnyyl erphefvir vayvar shapgvbaf.