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From: robert@texas.asd.sgi.com (Robert Skinner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: The Future (64 bits) and SGI quad-word alignment
Keywords: alignment SGI 64-bit portable graphics
Message-ID: <1991Mar1.014523.15526@odin.corp.sgi.com>
Date: 1 Mar 91 01:45:23 GMT
References: <6518@idunno.Princeton.EDU>
Sender: news@odin.corp.sgi.com (Net News)
Reply-To: robert@sgi.com
Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc., Advanced Systems Division
Lines: 29

In article <6518@idunno.Princeton.EDU>, dmlaur@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (David M. Laur) writes:
|> I realize the -lmpc verion of malloc will give a "quad-word" aligned
|> address (whatever that really means).  But it's not clear to me if
|> that library should (or can) be used on single-processor systems.
|> 
|> David Laur    dmlaur@gauguin.princeton.edu
|> Princeton University, Interactive Computer Graphics Lab
|> "Talking about music is like dancing about architecture" - Laurie Anderson

libmpc.a can be used on single-processor systems, and with single
process applications.  There is a *slight* performance penalty if your
application is a single process, because all stdio and memory
allocation routines are semaphored.  (It is very slight, because the
semaphore will never block if the application is a single process).

And of course, you're application will be larger, because libmpc is not
a shared library.

-- 
Robert Skinner
robert@sgi.com


	My father was a gambler down in Georgia,
	Wound up on the wrong end of a gun,
	I was born in the back seat of a Greyhound,
	Rollin' down highway forty-one.
 
			- The Allman Brothers