On Tue, Jun 20, 2006 at 09:17:08AM -0400, Lennart Sorensen wrote: > So goodbye to mmx, and various other crap thigns. x87 is supported on > current CPUs but there are feature flags that will permit the removal of > x87 support in the future. Both linux and windows encourage the use of > sse instead of x87 for floating point, and I believe all compilers by > default do so in long mode for all current OSs that support amd64, so > the removal shouldn't be a problem sometime in the future (although > doing so would I suppose prevent running 32bit floating point > applications anymore without recompiling those for sse.)
The lack of x87 wouldn't be a problem. At least, i386 still has the code left from the old days and will emulate it transparently; when such an amd64 CPU pops out the x87 emulation can be ported. In fact, it has a separate hardware path from all other types of unknown opcodes (INT7 instead of INT6); x87 was _designed_ to be emulated if not present from the very start. Cheers, -- 1KB // Microsoft corollary to Hanlon's razor: // Never attribute to stupidity what can be // adequately explained by malice. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]