[virtmach] IEEE 745 Floating Point VM

[Stephen Pelc]

>  Has anyone seen/thought about a IEEE 745 Floating Point Virtual Machine.
We looked at building a silicon machine back in the early 90s 
(about 93, I think). The big problem then, as now, was that the 
FP performance of high end CPUs was increasing faster than we as 
a small consortium could possibly keep up with.

If you are thinking of using the virtual machine code as a 
distribution mechanism and back end compiling it (JIT), then an 
FP VM has its attractions, otherwise the performance limitations 
may lead to acceptance problems on high end systems. On low end 
systems it should be perfectly acceptable.

What is your rationale for an FP virtual machine?

Stephen

--
Stephen Pelc, sfp@mpeltd.demon.co.uk
MicroProcessor Engineering Ltd - More Real, Less Time
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