Re: Dropping/splitting (proper) i386 support
> > I am in favor of dropping the 386 altogether,
I missed the beginning of this discussion (perhaps it was on -devel only?),
so sorry if this has been brought up already. I've got a machine with a
VIA C3 processor, which I believe does not support the "cmov" opcode unlike
most modern x86 implementations. I believe this opcode appeared with the
Pentium Pro, so moving to the 486 as a baseline might be OK, but... I'm
not familiar with all of the X86 variants out there and what they do and
don't support. We have to think about:
- All of the x86 compatible Intel processors
- All of the x86 compatible AMD processors
- All of the x86 compatible Cyrix processors
- All of the x86 compatible VIA processors
- All of the x86 compatible TransMeta processors
- The National Semiconductor Geode
- What else?
By moving to the 486 instruction set we'll have to figure out what
processors we are no longer supporting and decide if that's acceptable or
not. The most obvious processor we would be dropping is Intel's 386. I
assume AMD's 386 as well. Is that it?
Can someone send me a link to the mail archive showing where the benefits
of dropping i386 are summarized?
Thanks,
Dale
--
Dale E. Martin, Clifton Labs, Inc.
Senior Computer Engineer
dmartin@cliftonlabs.com
http://www.cliftonlabs.com
pgp key available
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