Re: [OFFTOPIC] Re: Pentium II Math Bug

Alan Cox (alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk)
Wed, 7 May 1997 20:42:36 +0100 (BST)

> Of course no other microchip besides the Pentium's have ever
> experience any sort of flaw in their microcode programming, right? Think
> about it for a little bit and tell me that it isn't possible Intel flaws
> are getting much more attention than they deserve?

Indeed. From a Linux point of view the worst one are often the least well
known

o P6 spurious IRQ bug (ask LNZ how much fun it was)
o Pentium B/C stepping SMP bugs
o 486 'write to memory I dont own' FPU bug
o 386 POPAD in 16bit cs

The FPU bug in the pentium was a nuisance, these others have trivial work
arounds. And yes all CPU's have bugs - just read the sparc source code
before moaning about intel bugs!