kelsey hudson wrote: > yeah, so just like the number of GPRs in the x86 architecture, it's CPU > interrupt architecture sucks just as bad, being that there were really > only 3-4 spare IRQs for hardware that wasn't already in the box. How > this architecture caught on I'll never know. *sigh* Vectored interrupt > tables, anyone?
x86_64 has many more registers. It caught on because it was an open standard which allowed mass production and low cost. Another example of network effects in the market. It may have been ugly on the inside but it has gotten better (no more IRQ problems or register shortages) and has done the job wonderfully for many years. -- Tracy R Reed http://ultraviolet.org -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
