64 bit memory access

[Tony Mantler]

At 12:09 PM -0600 12/29/2000, Dan Malek wrote:
>Tim Montgomery wrote:
[...]
>> Any suggestions/insight would be appreciated.
>
>Using 64-bit only I/O, and FP registers on a 32-bit processor is
>an interesting hardware/software hack, but not a very good system
>design.
>
>I guess we could write some kernel 64-bit I/O functions that use
>an FP register.  This would require disabling interrupts, enabling
>the FPU in the kernel, saving a register, doing the I/O, restoring the
>register, disabling the FPU, and enabling interrupts.  Not very efficient
>when a proper 60x bus implementation that allowed sizing would have
>been really fast.........

I'm almost tempted to say that the classic BSD-ish meme might apply here:

Q: How do I work around XYZ hardware bogosity?
A: Buy better hardware.

But of course, back in the world of linux, the "We Luv Everybody" OS, hope
still lays in the form of unmergable patchsets, but I would be dissapointed
if IO functions like these were to their way into any mainstream kernel.


Cheers - Tony 'Nicoya' Mantler :)


--
Tony "Nicoya" Mantler - Renaissance Nerd Extraordinaire - nicoya at apia.dhs.org
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada           --           http://nicoya.feline.pp.se/


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