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From: pshuang@athena.mit.edu (Ping-Shun Huang)
Subject: Re: CMOS read/write & CPU + CPU SPEED tester
In-Reply-To: pingel@jt.dk's message of 21 Jun 91 08:10:55 GMT
Message-ID: <PSHUANG.91Jun23155921@beeblebrox.mit.edu>
Sender: news@athena.mit.edu (News system)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
References: <824@jt.dk>
Date: Sun, 23 Jun 91 19:59:26 GMT
Lines: 23

In article <824@jt.dk> pingel@jt.dk (Soren Pingel Dalsgaard) writes:

 > also be tested. By the way: Is it possible to mix CPU type and
 > coprocessor? e.g. 386 + 287 or 286 + 387 etc, or is it enough to test
 > for CPU type and coprocessor, and then the coprocessor will be same type
 > as the CPU?

It was possible on some of the older 386 motherboards to connect a 80287
coprocessor (they had the hardware socket for it).  I don't know if any
of the non-obvious combinations are acceptable.

You should probably explicitly test everything.  Don't make assumptions.
New hardware can obviate old assumptions; e.g. some software assumed
that if the CPU was a i486 that there would be a NPU, and so didn't test
for one, and then Intel introduced the i486SX, which required bug-fix
releases from disgruntled software manufacturers (can't blame the
programmers, really, when Intel made such a big deal before about the
fact that with its new generation of CPU's, *ALL* machines would ship
with a math co-processor and software could count on having it there...)

--
Above text where applicable is (c) Copyleft 1991, all rights deserved by:
UNIX:/etc/ping instantiated (Ping Huang) [INTERNET: pshuang@athena.mit.edu]
