Re: Linux support for Intel MMX CPU's

Bernd Eckenfels (ecki@inka.de)
20 Aug 1996 19:35:25 GMT

Michel LESPINASSE <walken@via.ecp.fr> wrote:
: >From what I've read on the MMX documentations (available at
: http://www.intel.com/pc-supp/multimed/mmx/prm.htm), and from what I've
: been told by some programmers that have access to the current versions of
: this chip, the OS does not have to be aware of the MMX to let the
: applications use it. The MMX registers are aliased on the FP stack,
: so any context-switching routine that is able to save the FPU state, will
: be able to use the MMX state.

The problem with this is, that the FPU is not available in the Usercontext
which uses MMX commands. The question is, if this will work with current
libc/ctr0.o stuff.

Greetings
Bernd

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