Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> > How long do I have to repeat myself: They're gonna do it some day.
>
>   Can you give me a reference to, for example, an online linux community
> where they are discussing this?
>
>   Or are you, too, making a claim with absolutely no proof?

The proof is in my argument: The x87 will not live eternally, one way or the
other.

>   (In fact, with linux it even *might* be plausible because 99.9% of the
> software for it is open source and it's more or less trivial for every
> distro to just recompile *everything* for the new system. With Windows,
> which is plagued with old, closed source software, I don't think so.)

Even Windows software occasionally sees new versions of itself - or at least so
I heard tell.

> > - There *may* be reasons for chip manufacturers to want to get rid of the x87
> > FPU in their CPU design.
>
>   Which has nothing to do with the OS dropping support even in CPUs with
> a FPU.

Warp, why don't you get this one of my points, now once and for all: The desire
of chip manufacturers *may* be the reason for OS manufacturers to go into that
direction.

May, can be, possibly. I'm saying nothing more. But that *IS*, for heaven's
sake, a possible reason, and it *HAS*, for heaven's sake, something to do with
it.

If you don't get this, sorry, your problem.

> > - You can't strip the x87 FPU off the CPU unless the OS are ready for it, for
> > about the same reason that you (to some degree undoubtly righteously) argue
> > that you can't just strip FPU support off the OS.
>
>   And the OS cannot drop support because 99% of software uses it. So they
> are rather locked.

That statement of yours is BS for reasons I keep trying to explain to you, but
it seems you don't listen - you just dismiss my points with some circular kind
of argument.

> > - The OS *may* not be ready for it unless it itself has totally dropped the x87
> > FPU support (e.g. due to FPU commands that it may have to issue during task
> > switching, which may cause a mess on a CPU that doesn't support the x87 FPU)
>
>   I'm pretty sure it's very easy for them to compile a special version of
> the OS for a platform with no FPU. I would be surprised if you couldn't do
> that eg. with the Linux kernel.

With the Linux kernel - pretty well sure. But with a closed-source OS like
Windows? You just mentioned above that users can't just re-compile
closed-source software.

So the mainstream software would have to do the right thing off-the-shelf.

>   It's not a question of difficulty. It's a question of allowing software
> to run.

Yah yah yah... heard that long enough from you.


> > So we *may* be talking about a way to achieve some significant additional
> > speedup for 99% of the software that will be out there in, say, 5 years.
>
>   Software speeding up by using SSE has nothing to do with whether the OS
> supports the FPU or not.

But speedup *OF SSE ITSELF* may have...

.... (geez, you're having me close to shouting out loud "dummo!" right here...)


> > BTW, your claim that you can get every old stuff to run on Vista is BS. Think
> > for example about the numerous DOS games, which are being "actively boycotted"
> > and denied direct access to hardware when run under modern OS.
>
>   Vista doesn't boycott old DOS software any more than eg. Linux does.
> They are basically completely different operating systems.

There's a difference here: Many DOS console software *DOES* run on Vista (at
least I guess so - it does on XP), because Windows has always been *designed*
to still be able to run DOS software. If it doesn't make use of direct hardware
access or 32-bit mode, that is.

Linux has never run DOS executables "natively". There may be add-ons to do so,
which may even be included in typical distributions, but they're not part of
the OS as such.


> (Well, DOS is *not* an operating system at all.)

Then what do you think it's named for? "Disk Ohjesushelpme System"?

Your definition of an operating system may be somewhat biased by the times of
scheduled multitasking and multicore systems.


Now, 'nuff said. If you are not willing to get my points, then forget about it.

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