Subject: Re: DUMMY_NOPS is confusing me.
To: Kevin P. Neal <kpneal@pobox.com>
From: Tim Rightnour <root@garbled.net>
List: port-i386
Date: 05/16/2000 12:09:54
On 16-May-00 Kevin P. Neal wrote:
>> Enabling DUMMY_NOPS eliminates the nops in i/o, which are only
>> neccessary on some very old machines.
> 
> How do you know if it is safe on an old machine to enable DUMMY_NOPS?

You don't really.  I have only had one machine that had problems with this, a
very old 386-40.  I've never seen anything else with trouble.  it's pretty safe
to test out, as basically the machine just wedges solid in the first few
seconds.  It's not like silent data corruption will occur.

I've never seen a 486 with this problem.  (thats not to say they don't exist)

---
Tim Rightnour <root@garbled.net>
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