Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!tmsoft!masnet!canremote!bradley.grigor
From: bradley.grigor@canremote.uucp (BRADLEY GRIGOR)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2
Subject: OS/2 and 386SX
Message-ID: <8bc869ec832f26b24014@canremote.uucp>
Date: 28 Jul 90 23:47:00 GMT
Organization: Canada Remote Systems Limited, Mississauga, ON, Canada
Lines: 22

Douglas Baer writes:

ba>Does anyone know about the extent to which machines based on the
ba>intel 386sx chip will be compatible with OS/2 2.0?  I understand that
ba>the sx has the  full 32-bit instruction set of the dx chip, but has
ba>memory addressing limitations (16-bit path, etc.).   A salesperson
ba>trying to push a DX over an SX told me that the memory addressing
ba>limitations meant that many 32-bit applications (unless they were
ba>specifically programmed around the limitations of the SX chip),
ba>including OS/2 2.0, would not run on  an SX machine.  Is this claim
ba>garbage, as I suspect, or is there something to it?

I think it is garbage.  The 16-bit aspect of the SX lies only in
the memory access width, i.e. it fetches memory 16 bits at a time
and therefore has half the theoretical memory access performance
of a chip that fetches 32-bits at a time.  Apart from that, and
especially in terms of how a program sees them, an SX is the same
as a DX.

...bag     bradley.grigor@canremote.uucp      Newmarket, Ontario, Canada
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