*BSD News Article 8329


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From: rivers@ponds.uucp (Thomas David Rivers)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: [386bsd] installing fpu (ULSI) results in floating exceptions
Message-ID: <1992Nov30.013413.1119@ponds.uucp>
Date: 30 Nov 92 01:34:13 GMT
References: <1992Nov25.233843.29513@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> <6440@tuegate.tue.nl>
Lines: 34


I have had discussions with ULSI about the situation:

  1) The ULSI chip does *not* provide 80287 instructions (as the Intel
      and Cyrix chips do)

  2) Apparently, 386bsd *does* support such instructions, and GCC can
      generate them.

  3) When the ULSI chip is presented with such an instruction, it can
      have "random" behaviour; the least benign of which is to lock
      the machine up.

  4) ULSI will not (in the near future) be offering a part which does
      support 287 instructions.

  5) ULSI did promise to refund my money, but that was in the summer, and
      here it is the end of November, and I haven't seen anything.

    I did send a complete write up of the problem to ULSI, along with
 voluminous information as to how to acquire 386bsd.  They were very
 helpful, etc... and promptly acknowledged the problem, etc...  I gave
 them a lot of detail as to how to acquire a version of 386bsd to test
 with, etc....

    At this point, the answer is - If you have a ULSI chip, try and
 get your vendor to replace it for something else (Cyrix or Intel).
 If you can't get a replacement; call ULSI and speak to Roland, he may
 be able to work something out.  [If you do call, please ask where 
 my refund money is; it may help me see some of it.]

        - Dave Rivers -
      (rivers@ponds.uucp (home) (Raleigh, N.C.))
      (sastdr@unx.sas.com (work))