*BSD News Article 22409


Return to BSD News archive

Xref: sserve comp.os.386bsd.misc:1239 comp.os.linux:56280 comp.os.mach:3335
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux,comp.os.mach
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!constellation!osuunx.ucc.okstate.edu!moe.ksu.ksu.edu!crcnis1.unl.edu!wupost!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!uunet!emba-news.uvm.edu!aix1.emba.uvm.edu!wollman
From: wollman@aix1.emba.uvm.edu (Garrett Wollman)
Subject: Floating-point emulation (was Re: FYI.. benchmarks on linux and 386bsd)
Message-ID: <1993Oct14.193221.19391@emba.uvm.edu>
Sender: news@emba.uvm.edu
Organization: University of Vermont, EMBA Computer Facility
References: <CEMA3n.DuE@rex.uokhsc.edu> <1993Oct13.132032.22762@swan.pyr> <jpo.750590731@hrz.tu-chemnitz.de> <29j7ru$bfs@klaava.helsinki.fi>
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 19:32:21 GMT
Lines: 30

In article <29j7ru$bfs@klaava.helsinki.fi>,
Linus Torvalds <torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI> wrote:

>I assume the 386BSD crowd are still using my original emulator due to
>copyright reasons (I waived the GPL for that one, and made it "freely
>available for the 386bsd project" or whatever).  It's much slower, and
>doesn't emulate all the instructions unless somebody else has worked
>hard on it.  And even the instructions it does emulate it doesn't do
>completely: the math never checks for overflows or NaN's etc. 

We (FreeBSD) would really like to use the Intel-written emulator
provided in binary form with Mach 3.0, at least as an option, but some
of us (Rod Grimes in particular) are concerned that the license that
allows the Mach people to use it would not apply to our use of the
same code.  I've cross-posted to the Mach group in case anyone has any
idea.  Note that the comments at the beginning of the (uuencoded)
binary say simply ``sources are Intel proprietary'': no license or
even a copyright notice.

If we were able to use this emulator, it would solve all our FP
emulation problems (says Rod, who has seen the source); it's very
complete.

-GAWollman

-- 
Garrett A. Wollman   | Shashish is simple, it's discreet, it's brief. ... 
wollman@emba.uvm.edu | Shashish is the bonding of hearts in spite of distance.
uvm-gen!wollman      | It is a bond more powerful than absence.  We like people
UVM disagrees.       | who like Shashish.  - Claude McKenzie + Florent Vollant