Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!umd5!brl-adm!adm!chris@mimsy.umd.edu
From: chris@mimsy.umd.edu (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re:  Reading VAX SID register on ultrix or 4.3bsd
Message-ID: <13089@brl-adm.ARPA>
Date: 22 Apr 88 22:28:25 GMT
Sender: news@brl-adm.ARPA
Lines: 15

I was not railing *against* the `get interesting kernel variable'
syscalls, I was railing *for* them.  There are too few.  We could
use a get_cpu_type syscall, in particular for the C library routines
that use the fancy VAX instructions to do string operations.  They
run overly slow on the MicroVAX, since this machine traps on `locc'
and `scanc' instructions and emulates them in the kernel.

It would be nice, though, if it did not take a horrendous number
of syscall table entries to describe all the interesting kernel
variables; I argued for a call of the form

	get_kernel_variable(int variable_index)

I still think this should be done.

Chris