on 4-7-2008 4:48 PM Scott Silva spake the following: > on 4-7-2008 11:06 AM Manuel Tuthill spake the following: >>> It looks like the Geode is i586 but with cmov functionality. >>> >>> It strikes me as odd that AMD would build a 586 processor with cmov >>> instructions, but also build a 686 class without that instruction set. >>> Makes >>> me wonder if it was an engineering snafu that was too costly to fix for >>> the >>> quantity they expected to sell. >> >> >> Wow, that seems very odd. cmov was only part of the i686 instruction >> set so >> this still wouldn't work with a native i686 distribution right? >> >> BTW it was VIA not AMD who made the "engineering snafu" on the VIA C3 >> class >> chips. Rather than being a "snafu" they interpreted the IA32 >> specifications >> a little to literary, the CMOV is an optional instruction, but as fair >> as I >> understand if it's optional it shouldn't be used at all (since there >> is no >> guarantee that it will be available to all i686 cpu's) but since every >> other >> i686 class cpu had the instruction when they were doing GCC it got left. > > I totally forgot the timeline. VIA did make these chips long before the > AMD buyout. Sorry for this obvious bull. Long late day, and no sleep. What was I thinking? VIA is not ATI. ATI was bought by AMD. Too many three letter companies and not enough coffee!! ;-P -- MailScanner is like deodorant... You hope everybody uses it, and you notice quickly if they don't!!!! -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature URL: <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-devel/attachments/20080408/e055444e/attachment-0007.sig>