Re: Pentium emulation
Hans-Joachim Baader (hans@grumbeer.inka.de)
Sun, 27 Jul 97 08:05 MET DST
In article <Pine.SOL.3.90.970725132910.1110B-100000@maigret.informatik.rwth-aachen.de> you write:
>No. There are no new Pentium opcodes other than things like RDTSC or
>RDMSR, which aren't really useful for normal user programs and are
>never generated by the compiler.
>Things are different with PPro/Pentium II which have a new conditional
>move instruction. The currently available GCC versions don't generate
>these either, but 2.8.0 will most likely support them. It might make
>sense to try to provide an emulation for those, but it would not be
>very useful because of the performance loss. I don't think there will
>be any precompiled binaries with those opcodes anytime soon.
You're probably right. Precompiled apps must stay 386/486 compatible
for many years. There may be a few exceptions (games?) but they would
be too slow on 386/486 anyway.
hjb
--
Uncle Ed's Rule of Thumb: Never use your thumb for a rule.
You'll either hit it with a hammer or get a splinter in it.