At 23:49 22/04/2001, you wrote:
>On Sun, 22 Apr 2001, Ross Harvey wrote:
>
>> > The "cpuid" instruction is not available on all x86 CPUs and it is not
>> > easy to use.
>>
>> It's certainly difficult to use, yes. But being unavailable on old cpu's
>> is not a problem, since it _is_ present on any chip that has mmx. You can
>> just preset the output bits and catch any generated traps. But I guess you
>> knew all of that.
>> 

There were some tricks to detect which CPU you have
(even if does not support CPUID). If you search around
for very old dos stuff, I think you could get some detection
routines. As far as I can remember, I have a book that
explains how detect the CPU type even if it does not support
CPUID... I can search for it and post there the code guidelines...

For people who are interested in, Intel has released (it is not
new but very useful to know) some of its x86 processors specifications.
You can find the documentation splitted in 3 PDF files : 
Basic Architecture (document 243190), Instruction Set Reference
(document 243191) and System Programming Guide (document 243192),
this is the update for the pentium III CPU.

Hope that helps