Very Computer

Thanks.

-Joel

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|_|~~ Germany, Europe. 1943.    "The diameter of the bomb was 30 centimeters,
__|~| 16 Million DEAD.           and the diameter of its destruction, about 7
                                meters, and in it four killed and 11 wounded.
 cnc  Bosnia, Europe. 1993.     And around these, in a larger circle of  pain
 cnc  HOW MANY MORE?          and time,  are scattered two  hospitals and one
                          cemetery.   But the young woman who was  buried  in
                    the place from where she came, at a distance of more than
             than 100 kilometers, enlarges the circle considerably.   And the
      lonely man who is mourning her death in a distant  country incorporates
into the circle the whole world.  And I won't speak of the cry of the orphans
that reaches God's chair and from there makes the circle endless and godless."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

] the '387 disabled.  Failing that, is there any way to tell GCC not to
] include any 387 instructions in it's compiled code?  I suppose this
] would involve linking with an emulation library.  Is there one?

Have you looked in the gcc documentation?

    Joel> I'm trying to determine why simple programs keep crashing,
    Joel> and one possibility is that my '387 chip is buggy.  But, of
    Joel> course, I can't simply take it off the motherboard without
    Joel> tools I don't own.  Is there any way to disable it by s/w?
    Joel> I have emulation compiled into my kernel, and I want to see
    Joel> if the program will crash Linux even with the '387 disabled.
    Joel> Failing that, is there any way to tell GCC not to include
    Joel> any 387 instructions in it's compiled code?  I suppose this
    Joel> would involve linking with an emulation library.  Is there
    Joel> one?

You can boot Linux in such a way as to ignore your FPU if you boot
with LILO.  Just pass the no387 at the boot prompt.

ie:

boot: vmlinuz no387

To compile with FPU emulation you can use the gcc option -msoft-float.

Greg.

--
____________________________________________________________________
Gregory McKesey (Software Manager)      Gallium Software Inc.
Tel: (613)721-0902 ext (431)            303 Moodie Dr., Suite 4000
Fax: (613)721-1278                      Nepean, Ontario, Canada.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

To answer all of his questions, he'll need to look at the Lilo & kernel docs
also.
___

C++ consultant and emacs support. Mail me if you have any problems.

Quote:>    Joel> I'm trying to determine why simple programs keep crashing,
>    Joel> and one possibility is that my '387 chip is buggy.  [...]

>[...]
>To compile with FPU emulation you can use the gcc option -msoft-float.

Secondly:  I'm going to try to return my '387, but I know I'm going to
have a hard time doing so.  Does anyone have any experience with this?
The '387 has "ULSI" on the chip.  I guess that's the manufacturer.
I'm going to try returning the chip to the store where I bought it.
If that doesn't work (and I doubt it will) does anyone know how to
contact ULSI?

The approach I'm going to try is claiming that the store and ULSI
violated truth in advertising laws when they claimed the chip was
compatible with the Intel '387.  Anyone have any better suggestions?
While we're at it, does anyone have any further documentation that
ULSI chips are buggy?

Thanks!

-Joel

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|_|~~ Germany, Europe. 1943.    "The diameter of the bomb was 30 centimeters,
__|~| 16 Million DEAD.           and the diameter of its destruction, about 7
                                meters, and in it four killed and 11 wounded.
 cnc  Bosnia, Europe. 1993.     And around these, in a larger circle of  pain
 cnc  HOW MANY MORE?          and time,  are scattered two  hospitals and one
                          cemetery.   But the young woman who was  buried  in
                    the place from where she came, at a distance of more than
             than 100 kilometers, enlarges the circle considerably.   And the
      lonely man who is mourning her death in a distant  country incorporates
into the circle the whole world.  And I won't speak of the cry of the orphans
that reaches God's chair and from there makes the circle endless and godless."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

FWIW - a friend of mine has been running Linux on his 386/40 w/ULSI 387/40
for several months now, doing all manner of "goofy" stuff that one would
typically do under Linux when you play around with everything (i.e.
recompile kernels, run X, ghostscript, xv, lots 'o communication stuff
via term & etc, Mosaic....) with no problems whatsoever.

IMHO you've just got a bad FPU, rather than ULSI having serious problems.

--


GAT c++(++++) -d+(?) e+(*) f+ g+(+++) h+ l++ m+/---
    n-- -p+ r s+/- t++ u++ w+++

Not a problem, and Im running UMSDOS 1.0 with an old NCR 7920 serial terminal as
a secondary from ttyS0.

If anyone needs help configuring UMSDOS, I have successfully re-installed it
about 9 times now (grin) and have become very familiar with it (out of
necessity! (Grin))