Vincent Lefevre wrote:
Saying that the x86 processor is buggy is just completely silly.
Only some gcc developers think so.
No, Kahan thinks so too (sorry, can't come up with a link just right
now). The original plan for x87 extended precision floating point was
to have a small stack of 80-bit floats on the chip, and an interrupt to
the OS if more registers were needed than the number extant on the chip.
The OS was then to provide the extra storage to "feign" the unlimited
number of 80-bit "registers".
Unfortunately, somewhere in the design process of the 8087 things went
wrong and the chip only handles 8 80-bit registers, not providing an
interrupt (or any other support) to an OS to fake the "virtual" 80-bit
registers.
Hence our problems.
--
Toon Moene - e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - phone: +31 346 214290
Saturnushof 14, 3738 XG Maartensdijk, The Netherlands
A maintainer of GNU Fortran 95: http://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/
Looking for a job: Work from home or at a customer site; HPC, (GNU)
Fortran & C
