clipka <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> > > What would the purpose be of not including ISA, EISA, VESA or at least AGP slots
> > > on mainboards anymore?
> >
> >   You missed the point: What sense does it make to drop support for the FPU
> > in the OS when the hardware has perfectly good FPU support?

> And you missed *my* point: I just referred to hardware because it's where the
> most obvious changes have been made.

> The motto is phasing out old stuff. If Intel would just drop the FPU from future
> designs, people would complain about *them* breaking software, and even louder
> so. Everybody expects a few programs to not run under new versions of Windows -
> but nobody expects any software (except very exotic ones) to crash just because
> you upgraded to the newest, fastest CPU.

> You have to change *somewhere* to phase out old stuff. And this *somewhere* is
> the where changes *can* be made *now* without breaking *anything*: New software
> being developed, and new versions of existing software being compiled. In 99% of
> all cases it will just be a matter of recompiling with an up-to-date compiler
> version.

  And you are missing my point. All you wrote is correct, but irrelevant
with respect to what I said. Even though what you said is correct, it still
doesn't make it any more sensical for an OS to deliberately boycott 99% of
programs out there by restricting their access to a piece of hardware which
*is* there and is perfectly usable at virtually no cost.

  The day Intel decides to completely drop FPU functionality from their
new processors, that's one thing. A completely different thing is for an
OS to deliberately break millions of programs for absolutely no reason,
even though the only thing it has to do to keep them running is a few
FPU stores and loads in its task switching routines. It makes absolutely
no sense.

  If newer compilers stop producing any FPU code whatsoever, and start
producing only SSE code, that's also fine, and very understandable. It still
doesn't make it logical for an OS to boycott perfectly working hardware,
breaking millions of existing programs. It just doesn't make sense.

  Basically the OS would be making an act of sabotage against all those
programs for no good reason, which is why it doesn't make the least amount
of sense.

  Even if Intel does produce a new processor with no FPU, it would *still*
not make sense for the OS'es to drop support. Why? Because the OS'es will
be run in older processors for decades. Heck, even today there are 80386's
running and used out there. Do you remember when the 80386 was first
introduced? Something like 20 years ago?

> So the procedure here is deprecation, which is stopping the flow of new
> "breakable" software out into the field.

  You don't "deprecate" a perfectly good hardware by deliberately boycotting
it in all major operating systems and breaking 99% of programs out there.
That just doesn't make any sense.

  The way you "deprecate" it is by making newer compilers not use it. The
OS plays no role in this process.

> We're not talking abount months here. We're talking about years. Lots of.

  And exactly how does the OS drop support for the FPU gradually, during
the years?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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