🚀 go-pugleaf

The 30usec avg, 60usec worst case i860 cache flushing times did not include
the rest of the context switch. I believe that without save/restore of the
FPU a full switch is in the 60 - 90 usec range (this is mostly a guess).
Using John's 60 - 120 switch/sec guestimate we're still in the 1 - 2 percent
range, which should be acceptable in a multitasking situation.

Saving and restoring the FPU state is pretty hairy - the manual's example
has about one hundred instructions. The time required will depend heavily
on the memory subsystem characteristics since there probably won't be any
I or D cache hits here. Multitasking number crunching applications probably
isn't a good idea unless they are given larger timeslices. No surprise.
Lance Berc                lance@orc.olivetti.com      (415) 496-6248
Olivetti Research Center  lance%orc.uucp@unix.sri.com <standard disclaimer>