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Article #10888Re: Any new instructions in a i486?
From: John R. Levine
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 05:00
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 05:00
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>NeXTStep is said to not run on the Cyrix 486 chips because "they are
>not real 486's". No one has come up with a reliable reason _why_ NeXT
>doesn't think they are "real 486's" or why NeXTStep won't run on them.
I don't have any real data, but I expect the problem is that the Cyrix
chip doesn't have a floating point unit. Next's own systems have all
had standard FPUs, and reviews of NeXTStep say that it won't run on a
486SX, only a DX. Display Postscript apparently does a lot of floating
arithmetic, so I'd imagine the performance hit for simulated FP could be
severe.
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl
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Sender: Postmaster@iecc.cambridge.ma.us Newsgroups: comp.arch Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!think.com!spdcc!iecc!mailgateway Subject: Re: Any new instructions in a i486? References: <WAYNE.92Dec11164422@backbone.uucp> Organization: I.E.C.C. Date: 13 Dec 92 00:00:19 EST (Sun) From: johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) Message-ID: <9212130000.AA05447@iecc.cambridge.ma.us> Lines: 13