Re: hardware problems

Alan Cox (alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk)
Wed, 10 Apr 1996 21:59:40 +0100 (BST)

> > I'm afraid the default should be reliable operation, using a link
> > to broken_hw.h. There are too many pieces of junk out there.
> > Maybe even assume i386 if broken_hw.h is selected.
> 386 can be broken, too (was it multiply or divide?)

Two 386 bugs of major note:
1. POPAD with a prefix (16/32bit in the opposite mode crashes some CPUs)
2. 32bit MUL is faulty in some _very_early_ 386 chips

Also 486 bugs including:
1. Ability to write outside of your segments by about 4 bytes with a
really dubious complex to set up trick.

See www.x86.org some day - some quite fun pentium/486/386 features

Alan