You have several PCs from 386 to Pentium (or Pentium II or whatever).
You also have programs that should run on any of your PCs. This means
you have to compile with the -m386 or -m486 option rather than
optimizing for Pentium.
Or you have a cool binary that has been compiled for Pentium but
you want to try it on a 486...
Couldn't the kernel provide emulation of the Pentium instructions
for the 386/486, to solve this problem? I guess it could be done
since it would be very similar to the FPU emulator.
So the question is mainly: Would it make sense?
hjb
--
Uncle Ed's Rule of Thumb: Never use your thumb for a rule.
You'll either hit it with a hammer or get a splinter in it.