*BSD News Article 47187


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From: briggs@puma.bevd.blacksburg.va.us (Allen Briggs)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.aux,comp.unix.bsd,comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: MacBSD question...
Date: 18 Jul 1995 13:46:25 GMT
Organization: Home, Blacksburg, Virginia
Lines: 26
Message-ID: <3ugdvh$2lf@solaris.cc.vt.edu>
References: <trevor-1407950008080001@c18.globalvision.net> <1995Jul14.113427@ail3.montefiore.ulg.ac.be> <3uehvd$su3@panix.com> <1995Jul18.092719@ail3.montefiore.ulg.ac.be>
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NNTP-Posting-User: briggs

In article <1995Jul18.092719@ail3.montefiore.ulg.ac.be>,
Didier Korthoudt <korthoud@montefiore.ulg.ac.be> wrote:
>Nevertheless, I think 
>that it *needs* a FPU (accordingly to the docs).

Pretty much.  It's not really usable without one, yet--at least
until a few more instructions are handled by the emulator.  Currently,
the kernel doesn't use any FPU instructions if you don't have any
FPU installed (it only handles saving and restoring the FPU context,
basically).  If a user program encounters a real, live FPU instruction
other than a register save/restore, it will drop into the debugger,
displaying the opcode for the offending command.  In other words,
it isn't _quite_ unusable (I did boot it multi-user w/o an FPU and
timed trapped into the debugger, but I was able to continue from
there)--it is waiting for someone to come along and work on it.

>But I think that the PPClinux is on its way...

Yeah.  There was an announcement recently that they have a very alpha
version running somewhere on some PRePpy hardware (not PowerMacs, yet).

-allen

-- 
Allen Briggs - end killing - allen.briggs@bev.net ** MacBSD == NetBSD/mac68k **
   Where does all my time go?  <a href="http://www.netbsd.org/">Guess.</a>