VM h4x0r!ng Ctd.

Alan Grimes alangrimes at starpower.net
Mon Apr 5 00:11:26 UTC 2004


[Andreas and Tim wrote words to the effect:]
 > And of course, to be entirely accurate you have to say the "x86 ABI" 
since

>almost all "x86 processors" these days have plenty of registers (I think
>there are 128 on P4 or so) *Bang* (my head against the wall) but you can't
>get to them. *Bang*. *bang*, *bang*. This is soooooooooooooooooo stupid.
>*Bang*
>  
>

While I agree with you that x86 sucks you have to concede that if 
everyone were to run squeak tomorrow on the machines they have on hand, 
88% of them would be running on PCs... (using sales figures from a while 
ago...).

I'll agree with you about considering x86 a special case and by 
technical necessity move to base-offset indexing for 64-bit 
compatibility, with present images at least. I don't propose to change 
the image format radically untill there is actually a _NEED_ for 64-bit 
addressing within the image.

Also, for compelling technical reasons, we want to make sure the special 
case of the x86, Of which I have two instances at present, runs as well 
as can be achieved. So untill I get my first million dollars so I can 
buy me a good ole 21364, I'm gonna be pluggin away on this dual Athlon... =\






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