clipka <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> So for 64-bit apps, it may indeed be of advantage to use SSE2 instead of the x87
> FPU ("somewhat surprisingly", as AMD states). And 32-bit apps do not seem to be
> in any danger of losing x87 FPU support any time soon.

  As I said, it's completely understandable and makes sense that future
compilers (and therefore future programs) will stop using the FPU commands
if SSE is more efficient, and that using the FPU will gradually fall out
of practice. It may even be very conceivable that some future 64-bit
intel-compatible processor will have no FPU support at all.

  And that's not what I objected against. I objected against the claim that
operating systems will drop support for FPU on hardware which has a FPU.
Even for future processors, as long as they support FPU opcodes, I find it
extremely likely that all OS'es will also do so, because it's not really a
big deal.

  It's perfectly possible that some future processor will have no FPU
opcodes, and an OS compiled for *that* specific processor will, rather
obviously, have no support for them either (for the simple reason that
it can *not* have the support because the hardware is not there).

  However, backwards compatibility is such a big deal that I don't see
this coming anytime soon. It doesn't matter how much it would make sense
in a technical sense to scratch past mistakes and design a processor from
scratch, what matter is the market: People simply won't buy a computer
which cannot run their software. It's that simple.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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