[M3devel] 386?486?586?686?etc.?

[Jay K]

Any opinions/counter-opinions on which processors we should support?

Presumably it doesn't vary per platform.

 Like, it wouldn't be Linux/586 and FreeBSD/486 or such.

  Unless maybe there is clear data about what the kernels support?

 

 

The atomic stuff is pushing things to i586.
I believe before 486 and possibly 386 worked.

686 is probably reasonable.

I think it is Pentium II or Pentium Pro or newer, stuff like 15 years old already.

 

 

We might even drop "x87" support and use SSE/SSE2/SSE3?

 (Trolling for work in m3back? :) )

 Or make it a different set of platforms?

   I686_LINUX?

   I686SSE2_LINUX?

   etc.?

 

 

But I don't like such combinatorial work -- supporting more combinations.

Maybe, uh, drop all existing 32bit platforms and go with I686_*??

 

 

"Darwin" can pretty much imply modern processors.

  Assuming Apple hardware...granted, I had Darwin/x86 on non-Apple hardware.

 

None of this makes a huge difference.

I mean, in that, there's almost no changes that follow from these decisions.

 

 

 - Jay

 		 	   		  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://m3lists.elegosoft.com/pipermail/m3devel/attachments/20100207/198d6e7a/attachment-0001.html>