🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Bz89I7.23u@hfglobe.intel.com> sting@hfglobe.intel.com (Joe Bennett) writes:
>
>As for why the 486SLC by Cyrix will not run NeXTStep, I think
>something should be considered:
>
>NeXTStep is the first, to the best of my knowledge, 32 bit
>anything for the general PC market since Cyrix and AMD started
>their clone operations.  I don't believe that Cyrix could have
>possibly tested 32 bit stuff adequately, because there was very
>little of it out there, and they were aiming for the entry level
>market as well.

This is hogwash.

SVR2, SVR3.2, and SVR4 were all available before Cyrix ever produced any
Intel compatible processors.  On the PC, 32 bit UNIX has been available
since 1987.

>My feeling is, they booted up DOS, Windows, probably a flight
>simulator and a spreadsheet, and said, "It's compatible" (okay,
>I'm sure the tests were more involved than that, but that's the
>general idea.)

So they were fools.

>Now when Next ported their OS to the 486, they probably had to
>do some tweaking to their compilers.  This probably meant getting
>an Intel 486 programmer's reference manual to do it.  After fixing
>a few bugs (either due to something undocumented in the manuals,
>documented incorrectly, etc) they got the OS functional.  These
>nondocumented/incorectly documented things could be a partial
>reason for what's causing NeXTStep not to run on the Cyrix chip.

The 486 is pretty well documented.  Next uses GCC.

>Two broad assumptions on my part, but I wouldn't be surprised if
>that had at least something to do with it.
>
>I really wouldn't be too surprised if other true 32 bit code for
>the x86 family also had problems on the Cyrix part.
>
>But we'll have to wait and see.

Yup.
-- 

Rick Kelly	rmk@rmkhome.UUCP	unixland!rmkhome!rmk	rmk@frog.UUCP