🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov13.153056.7950@tamsun.tamu.edu>, tpradeep@cs.tamu.edu (Pradeep K Tapadiya) writes:
>
>From what I know, 486 has six more instructions compared to a 386.

Well, you are certainly right, but I've just looked at the asm mnemonics, and
_none_ of them would benefit the operation of something such as Windows NT so
greatly, as to completely wipe the 386 area of the market.  I see that programs
which say "requires" a 486 wouldn't even use these instructions, and would
only say this if speed was a major requirement.
I have also seen ratings of 386-40's
of 9.74 mips, and it is common for 486-33DX's to have a rating of 10.7mips,
although I won't forget that 486's have internal cache, which _does_ help.

>
>My question is, can't each of these instructions be simulated by
>a set of 386 instructions such that the functionality is not lost?
>This way we just need to write a parser which will go through
>the 486 specific executable file looking for these unique
>instructions and replace it with the equivalent set of 386
>instructions, thus producing a 386 specific executable file.

I've looked at all the instructions, and they would certainly be easy to
implement on a 386 system, without CPU time loss.CM2J;N
-- 
scarnie@esk.compserv.utas.edu.au

"On a distant planet, a creature strums his guitar..." {:-)
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