Re: Intermediate step for new arch for lc040 compatibility
John Klos <[email protected]> Sat, 3 May 2025 18:20:59 +0000 (UTC)
| Newsgroups | gmane.os.netbsd.ports.m68k |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
Hi, > However, this is only for those *using hard-float binaries*. And > that's where I'm confused. While I do see why one would want to run a > standard distribution on XC68LC040, why hard-float? It makes a lot > more sense to me to just run a soft-float distribution on any FPU-less > system. And it will be faster, as the FP emulation code doesn't need > the overhead of the F-traps. I can see why each solution is imperfect, and I agree that it'd make more sense to run soft-float on systems without FPUs, particularly ones with buggy instruction trapping. > I must confess I don't even know if there's a soft-float variant of > NetBSD/m68k (all my systems running NetBSD have FPU for now, though > I'm considering a home-made one with a FPU-less MC68040V), but for me > it would make a lot more sense to use that (and add it if it's > missing) rather than a XC68LC040-specific variant. Sure a bunch of Mac > LC475 shipped with those, but ultimately it's probably easier and more > convenient to either upgrade them to full '040 or bug-free MC68LC040, > or to run soft-float on them. There was this ages ago: https://jmmv.dev/2004/09/netbsdmac68k-soft-float-support.html Plus, here's NetBSD 5.0.1 from 2012: https://mac68k.org/mac68k-softfloat/ It might not be a lot of work to get soft-float working 100%. John